Word.ws English Dictionary

whirling

Syllables: whir·lingUK/ˈwɜːlɪŋ//ˈwɝlɪŋ/

whirling adjective: revolving, rotating, turning rapidly. Also the present participle and gerund of whirl.

Adjective

whirling

  1. Revolving, rotating, turning rapidly.
    • a whirling carousel; whirling dancers
    • The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them.1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid

Noun

whirling (countable and uncountable, plural whirlings)

  1. A swift or rapid turning or rotation; a circling movement.
  2. (US, uncommon) An organized attack where a group of people, usually teenagers, surround and attack women, with sudden physical assaults or harassment.

Also used as

whirling is also the present participle and gerund of whirl.

Forms of whirling

pluralwhirlings

Words formed from whirling

Phrases with whirling

Words that rhyme with whirling

Questions about whirling

What does whirling mean?
Whirling means revolving, rotating, turning rapidly.
What part of speech is whirling?
Whirling can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce whirling?
Whirling is pronounced /ˈwɝlɪŋ/ (US).

Words near whirling in the dictionary

  1. whirlimixer
  2. whirlimixers
  3. whirlimixes
  4. whirlimixing
  5. whirlin
  6. whirling
  7. Whirling Dervish
  8. Whirling Dervishes
  9. whirling disease
  10. whirling pits
  11. whirling table

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whirling (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-whirling.wav.

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