grease the wheels
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to make a process or situation easier or more efficient
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
làm cho quá trình hoặc tình huống dễ dàng hoặc hiệu quả hơn
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: apply grease to reduce friction
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
America believes oil can grease the wheels of democracy, insuring independence.
Cade founded no dynasty, but in his day he was a major operator in what R. H. Tawney [q.v.]called ‘ that seductive border region where business greases the wheels of politics and polite society smiles hopefully on both’.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “grease the wheels” mean?
to make a process or situation easier or more efficient Literally: apply grease to reduce friction
Is “grease the wheels” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.