Etymology

wheelhouse

wheel·house
W4H4E1E1L1H4O1U1S1E1

Today it means: A building or other structure containing a (large) wheel, such as the water wheel of a mill. Full definition →

English house ← Middle English hous ← Old English hūs
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*kʷelh₁-redup.
  2. Proto-Indo-European*kʷekʷléh₂
  3. Proto-Germanic*hweulō
  4. Old Englishhwēol
  5. Middle Englishwhel
  6. Englishwheel
  7. Proto-Indo-European*(s)kewH-der.?
  8. Proto-Germanic*hūsą
  9. Proto-West Germanic*hūs
  10. Old Englishhūs
  11. Middle Englishhous
  12. Englishhouse
  13. English todaywheelhouse

From wheel + house. Sense 3 (“(baseball) a pitch location which is favourable to the hitter”) references the fact that a vessel is controlled from its wheelhouse (sense 1.2), and sense 4 (“a person’s area of authority or expertise”) is a figurative use of sense 3.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.