Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To move with a twisting or whirling motion; eddy. synonym: turn.
  • intransitive verb To be dizzy or disoriented.
  • intransitive verb To be arranged in a spiral, whorl, or twist.
  • intransitive verb To cause to move with a twisting or whirling motion.
  • intransitive verb To form into or arrange in a spiral, whorl, or twist.
  • noun A whirling or eddying motion or mass.
  • noun Something, such as a curl of hair, that coils, twists, or whirls.
  • noun Whirling confusion or disorder.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To form eddies; whirl in eddies; have a whirling motion; whirl about.
  • To give a whirling motion to.
  • noun A whirling motion; an eddy, as of water; gyration; whirl.
  • noun Hence Specifically, in angling, the rush of a fish through the water when it rises to a fly.
  • noun A twist or convolution, as in the grain of wood; a curl; a spot marked by swirling.
  • noun Same as swire, 2.

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

  • noun A whirling motion; an eddy, as of water; a whirl.
  • verb To whirl, or cause to whirl, as in an eddy.

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

  • noun a whirling eddy
  • noun a twist or coil of something
  • verb To twist or whirl, as an eddy
  • verb To be arranged in a twist, spiral or whorl

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb turn in a twisting or spinning motion
  • verb flow in a circular current, of liquids
  • noun the shape of something rotating rapidly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English swyrl, eddy, probably of Low German or Scandinavian origin.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • This word goes best with "fudge" in front of it.

    February 13, 2007

  • In all my years, I never..., what was that?

    A counter-clockwise swirl!

    August 27, 2007

  • Low German? Now now.

    July 2, 2019