Noun: swirl
| Singular | swirl |
| Plural | swirls |
Sample Sentences
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Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. [1949 June 8, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC, Part I, Chapter I:]
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She told that white boy she wasn't down with the swirl and to take himself a hike.
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In truth, it was more to do with keeping up with the latest gossip on YouTube famous interracial ‘swirl’ couples and reality stars. [2023, Yomi Adegoke, The List, 4th Estate, page 198:]
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I'm baking some cheese swirls.
Nouns inflected like swirl
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English swirlen (“to eddy, swirl”), probably from Old Norse *svirla (“to swirl”), a frequentative form of Old Norse sverra (“to swing, twirl”). Cognate with Scots swirl, sworl (“to eddy, swirl”), Norwegian Nynorsk svirla (“to whirl around; swirl”), Swedish sorla (“to murmur, buzz”), Dutch zwirrelen (“to swirl”). Compare also West Frisian swiere (“to reel, whirl”), Dutch zwieren (“to reel, swing around”), German Low German swirren (“to whizz, whirl or buzz around”), German schwirren (“to whirr, whizz, buzz”), Swedish svirra (“to whirr about, buzz, hum”), Danish svirre (“to whizz, whirr”). Related to English swarm. See: Old Norse Nouns '
*svirla', Old Norse Nouns '
sverra', English Nouns '
swarm'.