velocipede
Americannoun
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a vehicle, usually having two or three wheels, that is propelled by the rider.
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an early kind of bicycle or tricycle.
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a light, three-wheeled, pedal-driven vehicle for railway inspection, used for carrying one person on a railroad track.
noun
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an early form of bicycle propelled by pushing along the ground with the feet
-
any early form of bicycle or tricycle
Other Word Forms
- velocipedist noun
Etymology
Origin of velocipede
1810–20; < French vélocipède bicycle, equivalent to véloci- (< Latin, stem of vēlōx quick) + -pède -ped
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.
The Mod was a mohair-buttoned masher on speed: a dedicated follower of fashion who lived for the weekend and rode a Vespa instead of a velocipede.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 15, 2026
Bike-adjacent inventions that roll atop train tracks have been known by many different names — handcar, draisine, kalamazoo and velocipede are just a few — since they first cropped up around the 1860s.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 10, 2023
And between two wooden luggage carts from the late 1800s sits a railway velocipede, a three-wheeled handcar that was operated by pedals.
From Washington Times • Nov. 15, 2020
Courtesy of the enormous front wheel, it was a racing machine - twice as fast as a velocipede.
From BBC • Apr. 29, 2019
“But what if we found the true owner of the velocipede, and returned it? Wouldn’t that solve everything?”
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
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.
