bicycle [M19th] The velocipede [E19th] (literally ‘rapid foot’) was the early form of bicycle, which is formed from bi- ‘two’ and Greek kuklos ‘wheel’. The abbreviation bike was not long to follow, in the late 19th century. A tricycle as a name for a three-wheeled coach drawn by two horses, dates from the 1820s, with the abbreviation trike appearing in the 1880s. Unicycle, from uni- ‘one’, was first recorded in the US in the 1860s.