flywheel

American  

[flahy-hweel, -weel] / ˈflaɪˌʰwil, -ˌwil /

noun

Machinery.

• flywheels
  plural

1. a heavy disk or wheel rotating on a shaft so that its momentum gives almost uniform rotational speed to the shaft and to all connected machinery.

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flywheel British  

/ ˈflaɪˌwiːl /

noun

1. a heavy wheel that stores kinetic energy and smooths the operation of a reciprocating engine by maintaining a constant speed of rotation over the whole cycle

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• flywheels
  plural

Etymology

Origin of flywheel

First recorded in 1775–85; fly ² + wheel

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flywheel flywheels

“The balance between new store growth and double-digit comparable sales growth for the past five quarters is a testament to our operating flywheel gaining momentum,” Park said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

“Taken together, our brand flywheel is working,” Niccol said.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

The medium of animation itself is a structural reason why other film studios haven’t achieved Disney’s success: it is uniquely well-suited to form the core of such a flywheel.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Nvidia’s capital allocation strategy, powered by its AI-driven cash flywheel, prioritizes funding its high-return growth initiatives, expanding its AI ecosystem, and returning significant excess cash to shareholders.

From Barron's ● May 29, 2026

The starter cord was a three-foot length of rope that wrapped tightly around the engine’s flywheel.

From "Flush" by Carl Hiaasen

Images on social media purport to show one of the chairlift's flywheels off it's spoke.

From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2025

So when you start connecting the dots, there are really positive elements to those flywheels that are kind of unseen, but I can give you dozens of examples of those throughout Amazon.

From The Verge ● Oct. 12, 2021

G.M., in other words, was adept at creating flywheels.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 10, 2019

Excess solar energy will be stored via flywheels housed in a communal building.

From Scientific American ● Nov. 14, 2017

It grew louder, angrier, and suggested the high-velocity spin of flywheels or electric turbines turning at impossible speed.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan