gire
gire is the obsolete form of gyre.
Meaning of gyre
Noun
gyre (plural gyres)
- A swirling vortex.
- A circular or spiral motion; also, a circle described by a moving body; a revolution, a turn.
- Quick, and more quick he ſpins in giddy Gires, / Then falls, and in much Foam his Soul expires.1700, [John] Dryden, “Meleager and Atalanta, out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 112
- Synonym of gyrus (“a fold or ridge on the cerebral cortex of the brain”).
- Synonyms:
- gyrus
- An ocean current caused by wind which moves in a circular manner, especially one that is large-scale and observed in a major ocean.
- Most ships that tried to cross the Pacific in the past would get stuck in the gyres and never make it out.
Proper noun capitalized: Gire
Gire
- An anglicized version of Geier or Guyer, a common family name of German roots.
Forms of gire
| plural | gires |
|---|
Origin of gire
Americanized from German roots, from Gaier or Geyer. It may derive from gyrfalcon, a falcon used in the middle ages for hunting by royalty.
Questions about gire
- What does gire mean?
- Gire means an anglicized version of Geier or Guyer, a common family name of German roots.
- What is gire the obsolete form of?
- Gire is the obsolete form of gyre.
- What part of speech is gire?
- Gire is a proper noun.
Words near gire in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gire (page history and authors); Gire (page history and authors); gyre (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “gire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.