Wheelhouse

/ˈʍiːlˌhaʊs/ · noun

Meaning

A building or other structure containing a (large) wheel, such as the water wheel of a mill..

Definitions by Sense

1. A building or other structure containing a (large) wheel, such as the water wheel of a mill.
2. (archaeology) A prehistoric structure from the Iron Age found in Scotland, characteristically including an outer wall within which a circle of stone piers (resembling the spokes of a wheel) form the basis for lintel arches supporting corbelled roofing with a hearth at the hub.
3. (Canada, US, baseball, by extension from sense 1.2) A pitch location which is favourable to the hitter.
4. (Canada, US, figuratively) A person's area of authority or expertise.
5. (Canada, US, figuratively) A set of skills necessitated by a situation.

Example Sentences

A machine with two pair of moulds only, will make from fifty to seventy thousand bricks per week. But if the regular market be large, it can, by using a steam machine of 10 horse power, work sixteen moulds, (four on each side of the wheel house,) and make two hundred thousand bricks per week.

The mill was driven by an overshot wheel twenty-seven and a half feet in diameter, placed in a separate wheel-house, built of stone, between the mill and a bank thirty feet high, upon which the water was brought by a canal.

Most Celtic houses in Britain were simply constructed. They were generally round as in the remains of the house at Little Woodbury in Wiltshire, the wheelhouse at Jarlshof in Shetland, or the house on an unenclosed platform at Greenknowe in Berwickshire. [...] The roof of the Greenknowe house was conical. It had rafters fanning outwards from a high top, like the spokes of an umbrella. You can see why it is called a wheelhouse. The rafters were held at their lower ends on a horizontal ring of timber that rested on vertical posts with Y-shaped tops.

Ancestors of the historical Picts can be credited with the structural form of the wheelhouse with its western and northern affinities, and with the souterrain, and distribution and function of which is becoming clearer, but which may now be thought to have persisted in evolved form until the middle part of the first millennium AD [...].

The pitch was right in his wheelhouse, and he hit a grand slam.

The ball was up in my wheelhouse, and I got round on it, got the meat of that Ritchie Ashburn bottle bat solidly on the ball. I'll never in my life hit a ball any better.

The next pitch was close to my wheelhouse so I just let 'er rip. I got ahold of it and shot it to left field on the line.

Here is the ball, in my wheelhouse. I slide my hips out of the way, put myself in place to hit the coldie of a lifetime.

Synonyms for wheelhouse

Antonyms for wheelhouse

Related Words

Word Forms

• wheelhouses
• wheel house
• wheel-house

Usage Notes

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