tyre

The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the word derives from attire, while other sources suggest a connection with the verb to tie. George Sturt in The Wheelwright's Shop (1923) makes a case for the latter derivation in that the metal tyre ('tyer') pulled the wooden wagon wheel tightly together when it shrank after being fitted red-hot. The spelling tyre is used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and most current and former Commonwealth nations after being revived in the 19th century. Both tyre and tire were used in the 15th and 16th centuries. The United States and Canada did not adopt the revival of tyre, and tire is the only spelling currently used there.

An antique tyre

• tire (US)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /taɪə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)
• Homophone: tire

tyre (plural tyres) (British spelling, Irish, most current and former Commonwealth nations spelling)

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. 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.

   Coordinate term: strakes

   iron tyres for the coach and iron shoes for the horse

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

   • 1960 April, “The braking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 237:

     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.

• → Chamorro: taia'
• → Japanese: タイヤ (taiya)
• → Korean: 타이어 (taieo)
• → Malay: tayar
• → Welsh: teiar

tyre (third-person singular simple present tyres, present participle tyring, simple past and past participle tyred)

1. (transitive) To fit tyres to (a vehicle).
   • 1929, The Listener, numbers 41-50, page 552:

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

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

tyre (uncountable)

1. (India) Curdled milk.
   • 1809, The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, […] ‎, page 954:

     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.

Possibly a shortening of attire.

tyre (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Attire.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     And feeble nature cloth'd with fleshly tyre

tyre (third-person singular simple present tyres, present participle tyring, simple past and past participle tyred)

1. (obsolete) To adorn.

• “tyre”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• reyt, tyer, Tyer, Trey, trey, trye

• tyne [tynɛ] (Gheg)

i tyre m (feminine e tyre, m plural e tyre, f plural e tyre)

1. their

• IPA^(key): [ˈtˢyːɐ]

Derived from the noun tyr (“bull”).

tyre (imperative tyr, infinitive at tyre, present tense tyrer, past tense tyrede, perfect tense har tyret)

1. grind away at
2. put down
3. kick violently

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

tyre c

1. indefinite plural of tyr

• tyri

From Old Norse tyr(v)i n, from Proto-Germanic *terwią. Compare Swedish törve. Probably related to tjære.

tyre m or n (definite singular tyren or tyret, indefinite plural tyrar or tyre, definite plural tyrane or tyra)

1. fatwood

• gadd
• lysterkorg
• tyrihjelm
• tyristake
• tyrispik

• “tyre”, in Norsk Ordbok: ordbok over det norske folkemålet og det nynorske skriftmålet, Oslo: Samlaget, 1950-2016
• “tyre” in Ivar Aasen (1873) Norsk Ordbog med dansk Forklaring

• ryte, yret, ytre