four-wheeler

• Rhymes: -iːlə(ɹ)

four-wheeler (plural four-wheelers)

1. A horse-drawn hackney cab with four wheels, as opposed to a hansom or dogcart [from 19th c.].
   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 22, in Dracula:

     At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris. And down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away.

   • 1890 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In Quest of a Solution”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC, page 41:

     In front a continuous stream of hansoms and four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-fronted men and be-shawled, be-diamonded women.

   • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter:

     "Excellent," said Sherlock Holmes. "Send the boy for a four-wheeler, and we shall be off at once."

2. A four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle; a quad bike.
   • 2023 November 29, “Former officer resigns after ATV crash in Greenwood leads to endangering the welfare of a minor charge”, in 5NEWS:

     Reid pressured the teen to ride with him on the four-wheeler, but the teen said no "several times" because he saw Reid drinking liquor beforehand, and the ATV had bad brakes, documents state.

3. Any vehicle with four wheels.