fifth wheel

noun

a horizontal ring or segment of a ring, consisting of two bands that slide on each other, placed above the front axle of a carriage and designed to support the forepart of the body while allowing it to turn freely in a horizontal plane.

a similar device used as a coupling to connect a semitrailer to a tractor.

a similar coupling between a heavy-duty pickup truck and a camping trailer (fifth-wheel trailer) that extends over the bed of the truck.

an extra wheel for a four-wheeled vehicle.

a superfluous, unneeded, or unwanted person or thing: They enjoy making any outsider feel like a fifth wheel.

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Origin:
1870–75

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Fifth wheel is always a great word to know.

So is ort. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

fifth wheel

—n
1.	a spare wheel for a four-wheeled vehicle
2.	a. the coupling table of an articulated vehicle
	b. a steering bearing that enables the front axle of a horse-drawn vehicle to rotate relative to the body
3.	a superfluous or unnecessary person or thing

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

fifth wheel definition

A hanger-on; a person who serves no function: “The vice president felt like a fifth wheel after his exclusion from the committee.”

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary

fifth wheel definition

n.
an extra and unneeded person. : I feel like such a fifth wheel around here.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

fifth wheel

An extra and unnecessary person or thing, as in He was the only one without a date, so he felt like a fifth wheel. This expression, which alludes to an unneeded wheel on a four-wheel vehicle, may have originated as long ago as 1631, when Thomas Dekker wrote Match Me in London: "Thou tiest but wings to a swift gray Hounds heel, And addest to a running Chariot a fifth wheel."

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"... women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling, shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg".... I saw men jump up on the seats and throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices: "He's all right!!"... No hysteria about it—just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle. And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning—the whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics! I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she screamed, "She's all right!".... But we are willing to admit that we are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing, "Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody doubts that women are excitable."

-Anna Howard Shaw