Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having a circular or spiral motion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Moving in a circle or spirally; gyrating.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Moving in a circle, or spirally; revolving; whirling around.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Moving in a circle, or spirally; revolving; whirling around.
  • noun UK A large traffic roundabout with non-standard lane markings or priorities, or with buildings on the central island.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In special alloy, which requires toughness and wear-resistance for applications such as gyratory crushers, jaw crusher plates, rail steel and cutting edges for earth-moving equipment, nickel is being replaced in part or entirely by Manganese.

    News 2008

  • Ben QuinnLewisham, a suburb of south-east London blighted by serious deprivation and unsympathetic post-war planning which turned much of its centre into a one-way gyratory, experienced a few hours of trouble on Monday although it was quiet after several hours.

    London riots: conflagration and carnage in the capital and beyond 2011

  • This arch-spinner could no more give up his gyratory habits than could Amy Winehouse unclog the cocaine from her right nostril.

    Archive 2008-01-06 2008

  • This arch-spinner could no more give up his gyratory habits than could Amy Winehouse unclog the cocaine from her right nostril.

    Brown's Whirling Dervishes 2008

  • The Christmas variety show was amuch-anticipated event on the school calendar, a chance for the students to showcase their talents with comic turns, singing, banjo-playing and a greatnumber of disco-dancing routines, disconcertingly gyratory displays performed in skin-tight ensembles to the hits of the day: London Boys, Black Box, Big Fun.

    Hail, Hail, Rock'n'Roll 2010

  • Quite like gyratory, territory and predatory though.

    Welcome To Istanbultory Praguetory 2006

  • And so, in chatting and thinking and waiting for the engineer, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans walked about beneath the forest of screws, whose gyratory movement gave their arms the appearance of semi-diaphanous disks.

    Robur the Conqueror 2003

  • Fortunately the gyratory movement of the water was opposite to that of the suspensory screws, otherwise the aeronef would have been hurled into the sea.

    Robur the Conqueror 2003

  • This meteor soon began to move forward, turning over and over on itself with dizzy rapidity, and sweeping up into its center a column of water from the lake, while its gyratory motions made all the surrounding currents of air rush toward it.

    In Search of the Castaways 2003

  • Without the prodigious coolness of the engineer, who reversed the gyratory motion of the fore propeller and converted it into a suspensory screw, the men of the “Albatross” would all have been asphyxiated by the fall.

    Robur the Conqueror 2003

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