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Spiral   /spˈaɪrəl/   Listen
Spiral

noun
1.
A plane curve traced by a point circling about the center but at increasing distances from the center.
2.
A curve that lies on the surface of a cylinder or cone and cuts the element at a constant angle.  Synonym: helix.
3.
A continuously accelerating change in the economy.
4.
Ornament consisting of a curve on a plane that winds around a center with an increasing distance from the center.  Synonym: volute.
5.
A structure consisting of something wound in a continuous series of loops.  Synonyms: coil, helix, volute, whorl.
6.
Flying downward in a helical path with a large radius.
adjective
1.
In the shape of a coil.  Synonyms: coiling, helical, spiraling, turbinate, volute, voluted, whorled.
verb
1.
To wind or move in a spiral course.  Synonyms: coil, gyrate.  "Black smoke coiling up into the sky" , "The young people gyrated on the dance floor"
2.
Form a spiral.
3.
Move in a spiral or zigzag course.  Synonym: corkscrew.



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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Spiral" Quotes from Famous Books



... who were carrying me ascended a spiral stairway which led to an immense hall where beds were laid together in three lines, so close that they touched each other. On one of these beds I was placed, in the midst of oaths, cries for pity, and muttered complaints from hundreds of fever-stricken ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... went through the inner lock-door. He saw that the interior of the ship was stripped and bare. But a spiral stairway descended from some upper compartment. It had a handrail of pure, transparent, water-clear plastic. The walls were bare insulation, but that trace of luxury remained. Pop gazed at ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... it almost made one dizzy to watch them. Sometimes they would seem to be standing straight up, facing each other for a few seconds, then they would whirl over and over in regular somersaults, suddenly darting high up in the air, sailing down, at last, in a regular spiral, and landing on the grass right in front ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... inspecting every cone, cranny and knot hole, chirping his fine, high-keyed notes, sometimes in a querulous tone, and again in the most cheerful and good-natured temper imaginable, now gliding up a tree trunk, now scudding down head foremost, anon circling in a spiral course. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... quarrel of his own accord? I think I see. We find in Algeria a Beetle known as Drilus maroccanus, who, though non-luminous, approaches our Glow-worm in his organization and especially in his habits. He too feeds on land molluscs. His prey is a Cyclostome with a graceful spiral shell, tight-closed with a stony lid which is attached to the animal by a powerful muscle. The lid is a movable door which is quickly shut by the inmate's mere withdrawal into his house and as easily opened when the hermit goes forth. With this ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre


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