fifth wheel

Questions about fifth wheel

What does fifth wheel mean?

fifth wheel means "someone or something that is unwanted and unneeded". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for fifth wheel?

Close synonyms include deadwood, spare. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is fifth wheel a common word?

fifth wheel is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.