whorl
Americannoun
-
a circular arrangement of like parts, as leaves or flowers, around a point on an axis; verticil.
-
one of the turns or volutions of a spiral shell.
-
anything shaped like a coil.
-
one of the central ridges of a fingerprint, forming at least one complete circle.
-
Textiles. a flywheel or pulley, as for a spindle.
noun
-
An arrangement of three or more appendages radiating in a circular or spiral arrangement from a point on a plant, as leaves around the node of a stem. The sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels of angiosperms form four separate whorls within a complete flower.
-
A single turn of a spiral shell of a mollusk.
Other Word Forms
- whorled adjective
Etymology
Origin of whorl
1425–75; late Middle English whorle, whorvil, wharwyl, Old English hwyrfel, equivalent to hweorfa whorl of a spindle + -el noun suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It was even more beautiful when it was clean, more wonderful than a shell’s gleaming inside whorls, because it was whole and perfect.
From Literature
The drawing’s not large—about half a sheet of notebook paper—but every inch is covered in pale green whorls and squiggles.
From Literature
Thought to be made from a cattle femur, this decorated Anglo-Saxon spindle whorl, used to provide weight while spinning yarn, was unearthed from farmland near Bishopstone, Buckinghamshire.
From BBC
Now graceful whorls of green leaves poked through the damp soil, and the stalks had begun to rise, with only a tender green swelling where the flower buds would very soon be.
From Literature
A bird looks like an abstract whorl until you catch it at a particular angle; a man barely emerges from his stone, the cross on his neck just visible.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
