stern-wheeln.
1. A paddle-wheel placed at the stern of a small river or lake steamer.
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society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > equipment of vessel > propulsion machinery > [noun] > paddle-wheel > types of
stern-wheel1816
side wheel1826
outside1876
1816 J. L. Sullivan U.S. Patent 10 Dec. Double stern wheel for boats.
1896 C. Markham in Geogr. Jrnl. 7 188 [The steam-launch] is propelled by a stern wheel.
2. transferred in jocular use (U.S.).
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1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) 450 The term is applied to any thing small, petty; as, a ‘stern-wheel church’.
Derivatives
ˈsternwheel v. (intransitive) to move by the agency of a stern-wheel.
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society > travel > travel by water > action or motion of vessel > [verb (intransitive)] > make progress > by types of mechanical propulsion
puff?c1225
sternwheel1807
paddle1827
steam1832
screw1840
1807 in Tennessee Hist. Mag. (1919) 5 62 Struck a large and stubborn sawyer, two or three feet below the surface of the water in a rapid current—stern wheeled with rapidity.
1905 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Apr. 345/1 The Amka..stern-wheels slowly from the murky flood into the green water.
sternwheeler n. a boat propelled by a stern-wheel.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > mechanically propelled vessels > [noun] > propelled by paddles > paddle-steamer > types of
side wheel1826
side-wheeler1857
sternwheeler1859
1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) 450 Stern-wheeler, a steamboat fitted up with a stern-wheel.
1906 Macmillan's Mag. Oct. 939 Our little neat stern-wheeler emerges from the last great lock of the Assouan dam.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1916; most recently modified version published online September 2019).
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n.1807