Slang dictionary

18-wheeler

or eighteen-wheeler [ey-teen wee-ler]

What does 18-wheeler mean?

An 18-wheeler is a colloquial name for a semitrailer truck with 18 total wheels, and by extension, any large truck.

Where does 18-wheeler come from?

Examples of 18-wheeler

Life is just an 18 wheeler running you over in slow motion for 100 years
@AntagOfficial, March, 2018
What was once one or two small truck deliveries a week has grown to several 18-wheeler truckloads and other deliveries at Mid-South.
Dennis Seid, Daily Journal, March, 2018
I had even cried while in the shower....It helped but I was praying for the time to pass and mercury would go direct and the universal energies would relax. Because being a medium and a healer it's like getting hit with sledge hammers, and getting hit by an 18 wheeler.
Brian Warriner, The Spirit of Me: Coming Out As a Medium, 2016
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Who uses 18-wheeler?

18-wheeler is informally used today by the general public in speech and writing for any large semitruck, regardless of the actual wheel count. Truckers themselves and others in the industry typically use either more specialized jargon or colorful slang lingo to refer to their trucks, though many will still call a semitruck with 18 wheels an 18-wheeler.

An 18-wheeler is the largest commercial vehicle allowed by federal regulation on interstates and, perhaps as a result, a go-to hyperbole for extreme force. For example, someone who has the flu might say that they feel like they were hit or run over by an 18-wheeler.

Another notable example of 18-wheeler in metaphoric use comes in rapper Drake’s 2013 single, “Connect,” where he sings: “She just wanna run over my feelings / Like she drinking and driving in an 18 wheeler.

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Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of 18-wheeler like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of 18-wheeler that will help our users expand their word mastery.