motorbike

Pluralmotorbikes

Formsmotorbikes, motorbiking, motorbiked

1. 1
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A motor-powered two-wheeled vehicle ridden like a bicycle; a motorcycle.

   She bought a secondhand motorbike for commuting through the city.

   A line of motorbikes roared past the village square.

   Similarmotorcycle, bike

   Note

   A compound of motor and bike, it inherits the casual feel of bike. That makes motorbike the everyday word and motorcycle the neutral one for forms, manuals and formal prose. Even so, it turns up in plain working prose, as when Montana Outdoors in 1980 describes staff using motorbikes to cut fuel costs. In American usage the word can also narrow to a small, light machine.

2. 2
   nounUScountable

   A small, lightweight motorcycle, easier to maneuver than a heavier road machine.

   He learned to ride on a lightweight motorbike before moving up to a full-size bike.

   These compact motorbikes are popular for weaving through crowded streets.

   Similarbike

   Note

   American usage can shrink the word to the light end of the range, so a motorbike is set against a full-size motorcycle rather than meaning the same thing. Elsewhere the general informal sense covers any machine. When the size matters, it is safer to say lightweight motorcycle, or let the context make clear which meaning is meant.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To ride a motorbike, or to travel from place to place on one.

   Every summer they motorbike across the country together.

   She motorbiked from the city to the coast in a single day.

   Similarride

   Note

   A verb made straight from the noun, and it inflects regularly: motorbikes, motorbiking, motorbiked. It usually takes no object and is followed by where the riding went, as in motorbiked all over the US. The -ing form often stands as a noun for the activity itself, as when Senay Boztas writes in 2024 of a foundation promoting safer motorbiking.

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