Definition of "eighteen-wheeler" [eighteen-wheeler]

• Informal A combination of a tractor and a semitrailer; a tractor-trailer rig. (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.

• "I was thinking about how much fun that had been, and feeling more and more thirsty, when a long tractor-trailer—the kind they call an eighteen-wheeler but don’t ask me to count them—appeared on the road, raising a long cloud of dust."
• "The result is a classic 'what would you do?' suspense tale, as the genuinely guilty young men try to survive retribution from an unseen driver (voiced with genuine sadness by Ted Levine) of an eighteen-wheeler."
• "Meanwhile, back home, Elner’s nervous, high-strung niece Norma faints and winds up in bed with a cold rag on her head; Elner’s neighbor Verbena rushes immediately to the Bible; her truck driver friend, Luther Griggs, runs his eighteen-wheeler into a ditch–and the entire town is thrown for a loop and left wondering, “What is life all about, anyway?"