Word.ws English Dictionary

whirlygig

whirlygig is the alternative form of whirligig.

Meaning of whirligig

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.

See all 4 meanings of whirligig

Forms of whirlygig

pluralwhirlygigs

Questions about whirlygig

What is whirlygig the alternative form of?
Whirlygig is the alternative form of whirligig.

Words near whirlygig in the dictionary

  1. whirly-bone
  2. whirly-wind
  3. whirly-winds
  4. whirlybird
  5. whirlybirds
  6. whirlygig
  7. whirlygigs
  8. whirr
  9. whirra
  10. whirred
  11. whirrer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whirlygig (page history and authors); 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.

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

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