Bicycle

How to spell bicycle

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce bicycle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bicycle mean?

1. nounA two-wheeled vehicle propelled by pedals and steered with handlebars.

Bicycle in a sentence

• She rode her bicycle to work every morning to avoid the traffic.

• He locked his bicycle to the railing outside the office.

Where does bicycle come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word bicycle was coined in the middle of the nineteenth century from two classical building blocks: the Latin prefix bi-, meaning 'two', and the Greek word kyklos, meaning 'wheel' or 'circle', which also lies behind 'cycle' and 'cyclone'. It appears in print in both English and French around the 1860s, just as the two-wheeled machine was developing into the chain-driven design we recognise today; the French form bicyclette was popular at the same time. The 'two wheels' sense is wonderfully literal, since the bi- counts the pair of wheels exactly. The 'c' in the middle traces straight back to the Greek kyklos and is the spot where many writers stumble, expecting an 's' sound to be spelled with an 's'. The whole word is a tidy example of the Victorian habit of building new technical names from Latin and Greek parts.

How the word is built

• bi- (two)
• cycl (wheel/circle)
• -e