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Whirligig   Listen
Whirligig

noun
1.
A conical child's plaything tapering to a steel point on which it can be made to spin.  Synonyms: spinning top, teetotum, top.
2.
A large, rotating machine with seats for children to ride or amusement.  Synonyms: carousel, carrousel, merry-go-round, roundabout.



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"Whirligig" Quotes from Famous Books



... matter of dress and of manners, the Puritan triumph has been complete. Even their worst enemies have come over to their side, and the 'whirligig of time has ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... as they are termed by the anthropologist, may often in large part correspond to impulses that are by no means dead in us, but rather sleep; and are hence liable to be reawakened, if the environment happens to supply the appropriate stimulus. Witness the fact that survivals, especially when the whirligig of social change brings the uneducated temporarily to the fore, have a way of blossoming forth into revivals; and the state may in consequence have to undergo something equivalent to an operation for appendicitis. The study of so-called ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... Tabreez even now, but to another village eight miles nearer. Here there is a large caravanserai. Near the entrance is a hole-in-the-wall sort of a shop wherein I espy a man presiding over a tempting assortment of cantaloupes, grapes, and pears. The whirligig of fortune has favored me today with tea, blotting-paper ekmek, and grapes for breakfast; later on two small watermelons, and at 2 P.M. blotting-paper ekmek and an infinitesimal quantity of yaort (now called mast). It is unnecessary ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... crashed with a lightning celerity, Leaving a name for the ages to be. "Ha!" chortled Phoebus, "that comes of temerity." See from the sequel the fitness of things: Nearly forgotten this early adventure is; Phoebus is beaten; Time's whirligig brings Still its revenge in the course of the centuries. Over the sky, from the east to the west of it, Man has decidedly now got the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... Sir, the most holy Lord is most wise in all the trialls he exerciseth his people with. He tould me that his affliction from his wife stird him up to Action abroad, & when successe tempted him to Pride, the Bitternes in his bozome-comforts was a Cooler & a Bridle to him." Truly the whirligig of time brings about strange revenges. Peter had been driven from England by the persecutions of Laud; a few years later he "stood armed on the scaffold" when that prelate was beheaded, and now we find him installed in the archiepiscopal lodgings. Dr. Palfrey, it appears ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... she spoke I thought how Elzevir had gone to shoot her father, and only failed of it by a hair's-breadth, and yet she spoke so well I thought he never really meant to shoot at all, but only to scare the magistrate. And what a whirligig of time was here, that I should have saved Elzevir from having that blot on his conscience, and then that he should save my life, and now that Maskew's daughter should be the one to praise Elzevir when he lay dead! And still I could ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... the whirligig of time brings its revenges. We return to the former age, on another plane, purged of its tyranny and of its cruelty, it may well be, and with all sorts of new imperfections to console us for the old imperfections we ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... Gubbins with his "A' the World in a Box:" a halfpenny peepshow, in which all the world was represented by Joseph and his Brethren (with pit and coat), the bombardment of Copenhagen, the Battle of the Nile, Daniel in the Den of Lions, and Mount Etna in eruption. "Aunt Maggy's Whirligig" could be enjoyed on payment of an old pair of boots, a collection of rags, or the like. Besides these and other shows, there were the wandering minstrels, most of whom were "Waterloo veterans" wanting arms or a leg. I remember one whose arms had been ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... more. A jay with skyblue shaft Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared Leering about the hole of a young beech; And every time she thought to corner him He scrambled round on little scratchy hands To peek at her about the other side. She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... cried St. George, resting his hand affectionately on the inventor's shoulder. "There isn't a chair in my house that isn't happier when you sit in it. What have you discovered?—some new whirligig?" ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... chance meetings between two atoms tossed hither and thither in the whirligig of life; for the peddler, shrewd, calculating and unscrupulous, was wandering along the Acadian shores driving hard bargains in small wares; and the Indian, like his race, fond of a roaming life, was drifting about the bay in a small sloop ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... waiting the return of fortune. But these days also were too good to last; and the former favourite of two sovereigns fled, if I heard the truth, by night. There was a time when he was counted a great man, and Millet but a dauber; behold, how the whirligig of time brings in his revenges! To pity Millet is a piece of arrogance; if life be hard for such resolute and pious spirits, it is harder still for us, had we the wit to understand it; but we may pity his unhappier rival, who, for no apparent merit, was raised to opulence and momentary ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fierce controversy, as in every other, he held a judgment free and far away from his passionate antagonisms. I found in the simple life of the community where I was brought up the same human things, in a small way, that I was subsequently to come in contact with in a larger way in the whirligig of political life in the Capitol of the Nation. I found the same relative bigness and the same relative smallness, the same petty jealousies and rivalries which manifest themselves in the larger fields of a great nation's life; the same good nature, and the same ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... which when closed to a certain width would indicate six o'clock. Then with a few jumps she was to announce it to a mosquito friend of hers, who would fly with the news to the gate-keeper of the yashiki, one Whirligig by name. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,—passing by which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we pause in Economy, or Equality, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... "You—you adorable whirligig!" he laughed. "I am a stronger animal than you. It would be as easy for me to murder you as it would be for you to kill one of those flies on the window-pane. Do you quite ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... ministers of Christ, I know no people can match them." The following epithets bestowed by Fisher on Dr. Owen are said to be fair specimens of their usual addresses: "Thou green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and grinning dog! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou whirligig! thou firebrand! thou louse! thou mooncalf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou livest in philosophy and logic, which are of the devil." Even Penn is said to have addressed the same respected divine as, "Thou bane of reason and beast of the earth." When the governor ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... and I swear I am willing. I haven't got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her car, bundling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently having got an inch nearer to the flying form of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... aght neet or day, His wife shoo went as weel; He gat noa chonce to goa astray;— Shoo kept him true as steel. His face grew white, his heead grew bald, His clooas hung on his rig, He grew like one 'at's getten stall'd, Ov this world's whirligig. One day, he muttered to hissen, "If aw've pickt th' lesser evil, Th' poor chap 'at tackles Sarah Ann, Will ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... The whirligig of time continued as ever to speed on its course, and bring round in due season its destined revenges. The health, mental and bodily, of Miss Brandon rapidly improved under the kind and judicious treatment of Mr. and Mrs. Derwent; ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... evening's whirligig farce was that the mosquitoes determined to come in for a share. These little, nipping, biting creatures preferred settling upon young blood, full of life and activity, existing under artificial circumstances, to the carcase ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... the same father, each with such different histories—the one reared in luxury and affluence, never having known want; the other dragged up in the gutter, all unsexed and besmirched by the life she had led. "The whirligig of time brings in its revenges," and it was the last thing in the world Mark Frettlby would have thought of seeing: Rosanna Moore's child, whom he fancied dead, under the same roof as ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... all the evening; or rather thought and fancy took a kind of whirligig dance, where it was hard to tell which was which. Visions of better opportunities than his father ever had; — of reaching a nobler scale of being than his own early life had promised him; — of higher walks than his young feet ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... different from what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting what he felt to be—at least for the present—a losing battle. It is possible that the "whirligig of time" may still "bring in his revenges," but not ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... street car. Give your fare to the conductor. Step down from the car very carefully. Look up and down for passing automobiles. Run down to the beach. Ready for lunch baskets. Eat your lunch. Drink the cool spring water. Now for the whirligig. Choose a galloping horse. Ready—go. Stop, slowly. Get off the merry-go-round. Run for the street car. Wave good-bye to your friends. ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various



Words linked to "Whirligig" :   spin around, reel, plaything, whipping top, toy, ride, whirl, gyrate, humming top, peg top, whip top, spin



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