wheels within wheels

Idioms and Phrases

Complex interacting processes, agents, or motives, as in It's difficult to find out just which government agency is responsible; there are wheels within wheels . This term, which now evokes the complex interaction of gears, may derive from a scene in the Bible (Ezekiel 1:16): “Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

Or are there wheels within wheels here we cannot even imagine?

From The Daily Beast

Wheels within wheels moved in his brain as he thought of the incredible irony of this ceremony.

From The Daily Beast

Ay, ay, Tammas, but there's wheels within wheels ye ken naething about; I canna do't.

From Project Gutenberg

Match-making involves so many parties, there are such wheels within wheels of calculation and resource.

From Project Gutenberg

There are wheels within wheels, all of which I would explain to you, only I fear that there is not time.

From Project Gutenberg

Rome at this time was a place where there were wheels within wheels.

From Project Gutenberg

They soon stood before a great throbbing monster, a mystery of wheels within wheels and of gleaming steel.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• arduous
• convoluted
• difficult
• fancy
• hard
• intricate
• knotty
• perplexing
• problematic
• sophisticated
• troublesome