The Collaborative International Dictionary
Tweel \Tweel\, n. & v. See Twill.
Wiktionary
n. (alternative form of twill English)
Wikipedia
The Tweel (a portmanteau of tire and wheel) is an airless tire design concept developed by the French tire company Michelin. Its significant advantage over pneumatic tires is that the Tweel does not use a bladder full of compressed air, and therefore it cannot burst, leak pressure, or become flat. Instead, the Tweel assembly's inner hub connects to flexible polyurethane spokes which are used to support an outer rim and these engineered compliant components assume the shock-absorbing role provided by the compressed air in a traditional tire.
Tweel (also referred to as a "Tweerl", the exact pronunciation of the word is said to be impossible for humans) is a fictional extraterrestrial from the planet Mars, featured in two short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The alien was featured in A Martian Odyssey, first published in 1934, and Valley of Dreams four months later. Weinbaum died of lung cancer soon after, and a third installment in the series never saw fruition. Tweel remains one of the most recognised aliens in early science fiction, and is said to be an inspiration for aliens in the works of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
Asimov described Tweel as being the first creation in science fiction to fulfill John W. Campbell's request for "(...)a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man."
Tweel may refer to:
- Tweel, a combination of tire and wheel
- Tweel (A Martian Odyssey), a creature in Stanley G. Weinbaum's short story
Usage examples of "tweel".
Again Tweel caught the idea, and informed me that three plus three equals six.
And Tweel knew of Mercury because he placed the Moon at the third planet, not the second.
I went through the whole blamed rigmarole again, and it ended the same way, with Tweel on his nose in the middle of my picture!
Yet, in spite of all difficulties, I liked Tweel, and I have a queer certainty that he liked me.
I pulled the transparent flap of my thermo-skin bag across my face and managed pretty well, and I noticed that Tweel used some feathery appendages growing like a mustache at the base of his beak to cover his nostrils, and some similar fuzz to shield his eyes.
The arm was going up for a brick, and I expected to see Tweel caught and mangled, but - nothing happened!
I stood there dizzy, watching it die while Tweel trilled and whistled.
Or perhaps the dream-beast can only project a single vision, and Tweel saw what I saw - or nothing.
Could you go even further, as Tweel did, and tell me that another creature was of a sort of intelligence so different from ours that understanding was impossible - even more impossible than that between Tweel and me?
These creatures are still more alien, less understandable than either and far less comprehensible than Tweel, with whom friendship is possible, and even, by patience and concentration, the exchange of ideas.
When Tweel squeezed the handle there was no trigger - a drop of water and a drop of the yellow stuff squirted into the firing chamber, and the water vaporized-POP!
So in I went and Tweel tagged along, not without a few trills and twitters, however.
Cimmerium and over that Xanthus, desert, and then we crossed the canal with the mud city and the barrel-shaped citizens and the place where Tweel had shot the dream-beast.
I recall how Tweel rested, sticking his beak in the ground and staying that way all night.
Leroy wanted to shoot one and cut it up, but I remembered the battle Tweel and I had had with them, and vetoed the idea.