Word.ws English Dictionary

whirligig

UK/ˈwɜː.lɪ.ɡɪɡ//ˈwɝ.lɪ.ɡɪɡ/

whirligig noun: anything that whirls or spins around, such as a toy top or a merry-go-round. Also the ellipsis of whirligig beetle.

whirligig: anything that whirls or spins around, such as a toy top or a merry-go-round
Image: Rklawton, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

whirligig (plural whirligigs)

  1. Anything that whirls or spins around, such as a toy top or a merry-go-round.
  2. A device incorporating spinning, wind-driven propellers or pinwheels, used as whimsical outdoor decoration in a garden or on a porch.
  3. (historical) A device for punishing prisoners, comprising a wooden cage that rapidly spins around to induce nausea.

Verb

whirligig (third-person singular simple present whirligigs, present participle whirligigging, simple past and past participle whirligigged)

  1. To spin or twirl about quickly.
    • “[A]n’ whin the anlooky brat had thim all in this way whirligiggin’ about the flure, he’d grin an’ he’d chuckle an’ he'd chather, jist fur all the world like Jocko, the monkey, whin he’s played off sum uv his roguery.”1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 524

Also used as

whirligig is also the ellipsis of whirligig beetle.

Forms of whirligig

Noun
pluralwhirligigs
alternative formwhirlgig
alternative formwhirlygig
Verb
third-person singular presentwhirligigs
present participlewhirligigging
past participlewhirligigged
pastwhirligigged

Origin of whirligig

From Middle English whyrlegygge; equivalent to whirl (noun or verb) + gig (“a top”).

Words formed from whirligig

Phrases with whirligig

Questions about whirligig

What does whirligig mean?
Whirligig means anything that whirls or spins around, such as a toy top or a merry-go-round.
What part of speech is whirligig?
Whirligig can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce whirligig?
Whirligig is pronounced /ˈwɜː.lɪ.ɡɪɡ/ (UK).
What is the plural of whirligig?
The plural of whirligig is whirligigs.

Words near whirligig in the dictionary

  1. whirlicote
  2. whirlicotes
  3. whirlier
  4. whirlies
  5. whirliest
  6. whirligig
  7. whirligig beetle
  8. whirligig beetles
  9. whirligig of time
  10. whirligigged
  11. whirligigging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whirligig (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-whirligig.ogg.

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