Word.ws English Dictionary

gyres

gyres is the plural of gyre.

gyres is the third-person singular simple present indicative of gyre.

Meaning of gyre

Noun

gyre (plural gyres)

  1. (literary, poetic) A swirling vortex.
  2. (literary, poetic) 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
    Synonyms:
    circuit, whirl
  3. (archaic) Synonym of gyrus (“a fold or ridge on the cerebral cortex of the brain”).
    Synonyms:
    gyrus
  4. 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.

See all 6 meanings of gyre

Questions about gyres

What is gyres the plural of?
Gyres is the plural of gyre.

Words near gyres in the dictionary

  1. gyreful
  2. gyrencephalic
  3. gyrencephaly
  4. gyrene
  5. gyrenes
  6. gyres
  7. gyrfalcon
  8. gyrfalcons
  9. gyri
  10. gyrification
  11. gyrifications

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gyres (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: “gyres.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gyres. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.