flywheel
noun
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A heavy wheel attached to a rotating shaft, a flywheel smooths out delivery of power from a motor to a machine. The inertia of the flywheel moderates fluctuations in the speed of the engine and stores the excess energy for intermittent use. In automobile engines, the flywheel smooths out the pulses of energy provided by combustion in the cylinders, and provides energy for the compression stroke of the pistons. In power presses, the punching, shearing, and forming are done in a fraction of the operating cycle. During the rest of the cycle, the speed of the flywheel is built up by a comparatively low-powered motor, and most of the required energy for the cycle is provided by the flywheel.
Examples of flywheel in a Sentence
Brady MacDonald, Oc Register, 21 Jan. 2026
Over time, Serve and Moxi will share one autonomy stack, one data flywheel, and one operating system for robots that work alongside people across city sidewalks and critical institutions.
—Karoline Leonard, Austin American Statesman, 20 Jan. 2026
All of Google’s Big Tech rivals, meanwhile, lack some or most of the components making up its AI flywheel.
—Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 17 Dec. 2025
Hallmark has spun up something of a flywheel, leveraging its TV and movie talent for live events, and creating original programming from those events.
—Alex Weprin, HollywoodReporter, 13 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Flywheel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flywheel. Accessed 28 Jan. 2026.
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