quote:

tire, n.2
[Probably the same word as prec., the tire being originally (sense 1) the ‘attire’, ‘clothing’, or ‘accoutrement’ of the wheel. From 15th to 17th c. spelt (like prec.) tire and tyre indifferently. Before 1700 tyre became generally obsolete, and tire remained as the regular form, as it still does in America; but in Great Britain tyre was revived in the nineteenth cent. as the popular term for the rubber rim of bicycle, tricycle, carriage, or motor-car wheels, and is sometimes used for the steel tires of locomotive wheels. During the twentieth cent. tyre became standard in the British Isles.]