wheel out

verb

To employ or bring out (something predictable or perennial).

Meanings

verbwheel out (third-person singular simple present wheels out, present participle wheeling out, simple past and past participle wheeled out)

present singular third person wheels out · participle present wheeling out · participle past wheeled out · past wheeled out

  1. derogatoryidiomaticoftenTo employ or bring out (something predictable or perennial).

    We need her to cover those client dinners where I get wheeled out to smile and look pretty.

    2015, Kiki Archer, Too Late... I Love You, page 10
    2 more examples

    They will gather their own gaylings and dykelings and Miss Things at the hem of their own caftans. They'll wheel the old queen out.

    2002, Alisa Solomon, Framji Minwalla, The Queerest Art: Essays on Lesbian and Gay Theater, page 253

    All the old clichés were wheeled out: “Living A Lie”, “Secret Torment”, “Bizarre Lifestyle”, and so on. Oh, how they wallowed in it.

    2015, David Bret, Rock Hudson: The Gentle Giant, page 235
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wheel, out.

    There were five in our party and the snow was too rough for ski-landing so the pilot wheeled out the old, fabric, two-engine biplane transport and loaded us on board.

    1971, Westways, volume 63, page 50

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
Cite this entry
APA

wheel out. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wheel%20out

MLA

“wheel out.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wheel%20out. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wheel out,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wheel%20out.

Source: wheel out on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.