Wheelchair

How to spell wheelchair

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wheelchair

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wheelchair mean?

1. nounA chair fitted with wheels, used by a person who cannot walk or has difficulty walking.

Wheelchair in a sentence

• The hospital provided a wheelchair at the entrance for her father.

• The new ramp makes the building accessible by wheelchair.

Where does wheelchair come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word wheelchair is a transparent compound of two native English words: wheel and chair. Wheel descends from the Old English hweol, an ancient term tracing back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning something that turns or revolves. Chair, by contrast, came into English from the Old French chaiere or chaire, which derived from the Latin cathedra, meaning a seat (the same root that gives us cathedral, the church that houses a bishop's seat). The combined term wheelchair appeared in English in the seventeenth century to describe a chair mounted on wheels, allowing a person who could not walk to be moved about. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the only mild trap in spelling is remembering the silent letter pattern in wheel, where the 'wh' and 'ee' must both be present.

How the word is built

• wheel (rotating disc)
• chair (seat)