Word.ws English Dictionary

whirl

/ʍɜːl/UK/wɜːl/

whirl verb: to rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly.

whirl: to rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly
Image: diaz, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

whirl (third-person singular simple present whirls, present participle whirling, simple past and past participle whirled)

  1. (intransitive) To rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly.
    • The dancer whirled across the stage, stopped, and whirled around to face the audience.
    • The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC
  2. (intransitive) To have a sensation of spinning or reeling.
    • My head is whirling after all that drink.
    • My brained ^([sic]) whirled as he went on, but yet there was a fearful impression that the worst was not told.1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 13
    Synonyms:
    swim, reel
  3. (transitive) To make something or someone whirl.
    • The dancer whirled his partner round on her toes.
    • He whirls his sword around without delay.1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  4. (transitive) To remove or carry quickly with, or as with, a revolving motion; to snatch.
    • See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels, / That whirled the prophet up at Chebar flood.c. 1630, John Milton, “The Passion”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC
    • To-night the winds begin to rise
      ⁠And roar from yonder dropping day:
      ⁠The last red leaf is whirl’d away,
      The rooks are blown about the skies; […]1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 24

Noun

whirl (plural whirls)

  1. An act of whirling.
    • She gave the top a whirl and it spun across the floor.
  2. Something that whirls, such as a whirlwind.
  3. A confused tumult.
  4. A rapid series of events.
    • My life is one social whirl.
  5. Dizziness or giddiness.
    • My mind was in a whirl.
  6. (idiomatic, informal) A brief experiment or trial.
    • OK, let's give it a whirl.

whirl meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

whirl in Hindi

a whirl, turn
आघूर्ण āghūrṇ

whirl in Tamil

சுழற்சி, சுழல்வு, சுழல் காற்று, நீர்ச்சுழல்

whirl in Marathi

whirl, vortex
चक्र cakra

whirl in Urdu

چکر, پھیرا, پھرنا, تیزی سے گھومنا, پھرانا
More languagesFewer languages
whirl in Telugu
సుడి suḍi
whirl in Malayalam
ചുഴി cuḻi
whirl in Kannada
ತಿರುಗು tirugu
whirl in Sanskrit
वर्तयति vartáyati
whirl in Malay
baling-baling, pusing-pusing

Examples of whirl in a sentence

  • If you've never tried a recumbent bicycle before, you're welcome to give it a whirl.
  • I don't know how to begin, but I'll give it a whirl, anyway.
  • Isaias drives through town, it is not in a motorcade with whirling sirens and sunglassed police officers.

All 40 example sentences with whirl

Synonyms of whirl

Forms of whirl

Verb
third-person singular presentwhirls
present participlewhirling
past participlewhirled
pastwhirled
Noun
pluralwhirls

Past tense of whirl: whirled

Origin of whirl

From Middle English whirlen, contracted from earlier *whirvelen, *whervelen, possibly from Old English *hwyrflian, *hweorflian (attested in hwirflung, hwerflung (“change, vicissitude”)), frequentative form of Old English hweorfan (“to turn”), itself from Proto-West Germanic *hwerban, from Proto-Germanic *hwerbaną (“to turn”); or perhaps from Old Norse hvirfla (“to go round, spin”). Cognate with Dutch wervelen (“to whirl, swirl”), German wirbeln (“to whirl, swirl”), Danish hvirvle (“to whirl”), Swedish virvla (older spelling hvirfla), Albanian vorbull (“a whirl”). Related to whirr and wharve.

From Middle English whirl, wherwille, whorwhil, wervel, from Old English hwirfel, hwyrfel (“whirlpool”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwirbil, from Proto-Germanic *hwirbilaz, *hwarbilaz (“swirl, whirl, whirlpool”), equivalent to wharve + -el; and also Old Norse hvirfill (“ring, circle, crown”), whence Danish hvirvel (“cowlick”), Dutch werveling (“whirling, vortex”), German Low German Warvel (“whirl, whirlpool”), German Wirbel (“whirl, whirlpool”).

Words formed from whirl

Phrases with whirl

Words that rhyme with whirl

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about whirl

What does whirl mean?
Whirl means to rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly.
What is whirl in Hindi?
Whirl in Hindi is आघूर्ण (āghūrṇ). See Whirl meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is whirl?
Whirl can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce whirl?
Whirl is pronounced /wɜːl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of whirl?
The past tense of whirl is whirled.

Words near whirl in the dictionary

  1. whipworms
  2. whipwort
  3. whipworthy
  4. whir
  5. Whirily
  6. whirl
  7. whirl bone
  8. whirl-bone
  9. whirl-bones
  10. whirlabout
  11. whirlabouts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whirl (page history and authors); आघूर्ण (Hindi) (page history and authors); whirl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); चक्र (Marathi) (page history and authors); whirl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); సుడి (Telugu) (page history and authors); ചുഴി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ತಿರುಗು (Kannada) (page history and authors); वर्तयति (Sanskrit) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-whirl.ogg.

Cite this entry: “whirl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whirl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.