wheelhouse

Definition

A building or other structure containing a (large) wheel, such as the water wheel of a mill.

Etymology

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.

Example Sentences

• "A machine with two pair of moulds only, will make from fifty to seventy thousand bricks per week. But if the regular market be large, it can, by using a steam machine of 10 horse power, work sixteen moulds, (four on each side of the wheel house,) and make two hundred thousand bricks per week."
• "The mill was driven by an overshot wheel twenty-seven and a half feet in diameter, placed in a separate wheel-house, built of stone, between the mill and a bank thirty feet high, upon which the water was brought by a canal."
• "This invention relates to an improved device for hanging the body of carriages having a so-called "cut-under" or wheel-house, such as a common rockaway, extension-top phaeton, coupé-rockaway, &c., [...]"