Definition of "four-wheel drive" [four-wheel drive]

• An automotive drive system in which mechanical power is transmitted from the drive shaft to all four wheels. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Only a trail bike or a vehicle with four-wheel drive could negotiate the sandy furrows of the Old Brrr Road, and there was not enough traffic to keep the weeds from growing in the ruts."
• "Stantori and Lester Treadwell, a lean, wiry man in his fifties who was in charge of clearing the deadfall, had taken a four-wheel drive truck up the logging road toward spike camp as soon as it had gotten light."
• "I paid the phone call's ransom into Donald's stringy outstretched palm and returned to my laden, ancient and battered four-wheel drive outside."