A stunt where someone balances a vehicle, usually a bicycle or motorcycle, on its rear wheel while the front wheel lifts off the ground.
From 'wheel' plus the suffix '-ie' (making diminutive or slang terms). A modern word from the 1970s-1980s, created when this trick became popular among teenagers and bikers.
The term 'wheelie' exemplifies how youth culture creates language—kids doing stunts on bikes invented the word, and now it's in dictionaries, showing how slang bubbles up from the street and becomes legitimate over time.
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