different between vortex vs twirl

English

Etymology

From Latin vortex.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?v??t?ks/
• (US)

Noun

vortex (plural vortexes or vortices)

1. A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column.
2. (figuratively) Anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some centre.
   • 2004: the consumer vortex that is East Hampton — The New Yorker, 30 August 2004, p.38
3. (figuratively) Anything that inevitably draws surrounding things into its current.
   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, part 2, chapter 1

     In early youth, the living drama acted around me, drew my heart and soul into its vortex.

4. (historical) A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or planet; part of a Cartesian theory accounting for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it.
5. (zoology) Any of numerous species of small Turbellaria belonging to Vortex and allied genera.

Derived terms

Related terms

• vortical
• vorticity

Translations

See also

• eddy
• ley line
• maelstrom

References

• vortex in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• vortex in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

French

Etymology

From Latin vortex

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v??.t?ks/

Noun

vortex m (uncountable)

1. vortex

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?u?or.teks/, [?u??rt??ks?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?vor.teks/, [?v?rt??ks]

Noun

vortex m (genitive vorticis); third declension

1. Archaic form of vertex.

Inflection

Third-declension noun.

Descendants

References

• vortex in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• vortex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• vortex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

English

Etymology

Of Scandinavian origin, akin to Norwegian Nynorsk tvirla, Old High German dweran (German zwirlen, quirlen) and Icelandic þyrill Or, an alteration of tirl (“to twist”), with influence from whirl.; all from Proto-Germanic *þweran? (“to stir”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?tw??(?)l/
• Rhymes: -??(r)l

Noun

twirl (plural twirls)

1. A movement where a person spins round elegantly; a pirouette.
2. Any rotating movement; a spin.

   The conductor gave his baton a twirl, and the orchestra began to play.

3. A little twist of some substance; a swirl.
   • 1969, The South African Sugar Journal (volume 53, page 51)

     Place the cream in a piping bag with a fairly large star pipe attached, fill each tartlet with a twirl of cream and top with a strawberry.

4. (slang) A prison guard.

   Synonym: screw

   • 1958, Frank Norman, Bang to rights: an account of prison life (page 67)

     Which was in the main childishness and pettiness, the reason for this was that most of the twirls and the governors had […]

Translations

Verb

twirl (third-person singular simple present twirls, present participle twirling, simple past and past participle twirled)

1. (intransitive) To perform a twirl.
2. (transitive) To rotate rapidly.
   • 1753, Robert Dodsley, Agriculture

     See ruddy maids, / Some taught with dexterous hand to twirl the wheel.
3. (transitive) To twist round.
4. (baseball) To pitch.
   • 1949, Mark Raymond Murnane, Ground Swells: Of Sailors, Ships, and Shellac (page 302)

     When the batteries were announced, however, and Herb Pennock of the Boston Red Sox, probably the best pitcher in all baseballdom, was named to twirl for the invading team, we felt we had been tricked.

Derived terms

• twirl one's moustache

Translations

References