Skip to content
OneKitly

tyre

nounverbnounnounverbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//taɪə(ɹ)//

The ring-shaped protective covering around a wheel which is usually made of rubber or plastic composite and is either pneumatic or solid.

noun

  1. 1

    The ring-shaped protective covering around a wheel which is usually made of rubber or plastic composite and is either pneumatic or solid.

    pneumatic tyres

    runflat tyres

  2. 2

    The metal rim, or metal covering on a rim, of a (wooden or metal) wheel, usually of steel or formerly wrought iron, as found on (horse-drawn or railway) carriages and wagons and on locomotives.

    It is also curious that whereas brake-blocks made of certain compositions (other than cast iron) offer improved coefficients of friction, their use can reduce adhesion, and thereby increase the liability to skid (doubtless by tending to polish the tyres) by as much as 20 per cent.

    iron tyres for the coach and iron shoes for the horse

    tyres and rails of steel, and every axle with roller bearings

Etymology

Attested in the sense “rim of a wheel” since ca. 1500. Generally considered to be a use of Middle English tir(e), a clipped byform of atir (“equipment, furnishings, ornament”), whence modern attire. A less accepted theory derives it from the verb to tie. The spelling tyre was predominant in the 16th century, but largely gave way to tire in the 17th and 18th, before it was revived again outside North America in the 19th century.

verb

  1. 1

    To fit tyres to (a vehicle).

    The circular iron platform over there is used in the task of tyring the wheels, a warm job, too, by the way.

noun

  1. 1

    Curdled milk.

    The boiled milk, that the family has not used, is allowed to cool in the same vessel; and a little of the former days tyre, or curdled milk, is added to promote its coagulation, and the acid fermentation. Next morning it has become tyre, or coagulated acid milk.

Etymology

Borrowed from Tamil தயிர் (tayir), itself from Sanskrit दधि (dádhi). Doublet of dahi.

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteAttire.

    And feeble nature cloth'd with fleshly tyre

    But for a dreſſing for her head I thinke for her I haue a Tyer, That all Fayryes ſhall admyre.

Etymology

Possibly a shortening of attire; or metathetically from a tire, with the 'a' viewed as indefinite article a.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo adorn.

Forms

plural
tyres
past tense
tyred
past participle
tyred
present participle
tyring
third person singular
tyres
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).