spare tyre
Britishnoun
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an additional tyre, usually mounted on a wheel, carried by a motor vehicle in case of puncture
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slang a deposit of fat just above the waist
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"A leading nation like Italy doesn't act as anyone's spare tyre," she declared to cheers and applause from the crowd.
From Barron's • Oct. 20, 2025
I later found out that "Stepney" means "spare tyre" - from a Welsh firm that made tyres in the 1910s.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2014
Thrust into the presidential race when the Brotherhood's first-choice candidate was disqualified, he was dismissed at first as the "spare tyre" but did in time grow in confidence.
From Reuters • Jul. 3, 2013
I may have a spare tyre around my middle from sitting in a taxi eating Mars bars for a living.
From Golf Digest • Feb. 11, 2013
Lanyard gathered that this was the second accident of the same nature since noon that the cab consequently lacked a spare tyre, and that short of a trip to the garage the accident was irremediable.
From The Lone Wolf A Melodrama by Vance, Louis Joseph
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
