velocipede
/vɪˈlɒsɪpiːd
/noun
1 historical An early form of bicycle propelled by working pedals on cranks fitted to the front axle.Fitzpatrick refers to reports of early ‘velocipedes’ being used for this purpose in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, when the bicycle industry was barely out of its infancy....
- He takes us from the French pushbike or draisine of 1816 through boneshakers and penny-farthings to the English velocipedes of the 1880s.
- By 1863, attaching cranks and pedals to the front wheel of the hobby horse had produced the velocipede, commonly known as the boneshaker.
1.1US A child’s tricycle.
Derivatives
velocipedist
- Another big problem for would-be velocipedists was the state of the roads: they were so rutted that it was impossible to balance for long.
- There were exaggerated complaints about irresponsible velocipedists, but there was also official support for the ‘feedless horse’.
- It being a delightful afternoon, the path was chock full of Sunday strollers, rollerbladers and fellow velocipedists.
Origin
Early 19th century: from French vélocipède, from Latin velox, veloc- 'swift' + pes, ped- 'foot'.
bicycle from mid 19th century:
The velocipede (literally ‘rapid foot’) was the early form of bicycle, which is formed from bi- ‘two’ and Greek kuklos ‘wheel’. The abbreviation bike was not long to follow, in the late 19th century. A tricycle as a name for a three-wheeled coach drawn by two horses, dates from the 1820s, with the abbreviation trike appearing in the 1880s. Unicycle, from uni- ‘one’, was first recorded in the US in the 1860s.