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Whorl   /wərl/  /wɔrl/  /hwɔrl/   Listen
Whorl

noun
1.
A round shape formed by a series of concentric circles (as formed by leaves or flower petals).  Synonyms: coil, curl, curlicue, gyre, ringlet, roll, scroll.
2.
A strand or cluster of hair.  Synonyms: curl, lock, ringlet.
3.
A structure consisting of something wound in a continuous series of loops.  Synonyms: coil, helix, spiral, volute.






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"Whorl" Quotes from Famous Books



... principle. profit, prophet. rigour, rigger. rancour, ranker. succour, sucker. sailor, sailer. cellar, seller. censor, censer. surplus, surplice. symbol, cymbal. skip, skep. tuber, tuba. whirl, whorl. wert, wort (herb, obs.). vial, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... my arrow-maker," he cried, showing me a round stone whorl. "He's a careless lad, and he'll lose half his belongings ere he ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... nook for my father to be in. I liked to get out with him upon the martial plain of sand and tremendous waves, where folly was not, by law of wind and light of Titan power, and where the most insignificant ornament was far from insignificant: the whorl of an exquisite shell, beautiful and still, as if just dead; or the seaweeds, that are so like pictures of other growths. I felt that this scene was a worthy one for the kind but never familiar man who walked and reflected there. We enjoyed a constant outdoor life. But in those uninspired ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... succeeded in finding but two specimens that show the inner whorls. They are thickly ribbed; and the chief peculiarity which they exhibit, not so directly indicated by Mr. Sowerby's figure, is, that while the ribs of the outer whorl are broad and deep, as in the Ammonites obtusus, they suddenly change their character, and become numerous and narrow in the inner whorls, as in ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... over the quart pot to warm the hands and face, one was aware of a gelid mediaeval back behind one. To be warm all round in an English house is a thing impossible, at least to the traveller, who finds the natives living in what seems to him a whorl of draughts. In entering his own room he is apt to find the window has been put down, but this is not merely to let in some of the outside warmth; it is also to make a current of air to the open door. Even if the window has not been put down, it has always so much play in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... struck—not a reef or a rock But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her Dead to the Kentish Knock; And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel: The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock; And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel Idle for ever to waft her or wind her ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... shell ornaments. By a combination of engraving and sculpture a rude resemblance to the human features is produced. The objects are generally made from large pear-shaped sections of the lower whorl of marine univalves. The lower portion, which represents the neck and chin, is cut from the somewhat constricted part near the base of the shell, while the broad outline of the head reaches the first suture at ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes

... a primary leaf converted into a scarious, more or less fimbriate, bud-scale. Buds from which normal growth develops appear only at the nodes of the branches. On uninodal branchlets they form an apical group consisting of a terminal bud with a whorl of subterminal buds about its base. On multinodal branchlets the inner nodes bear lateral ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw

... "Do you see that whorl? Look at those lineations! They're the same. I have the original photograph in my pocket somewhere." He searched his pocket-book and brought out a photograph of a ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... clinging stream Closes his memory, glooms his dream, Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides Superb on unreturning tides. Those silent waters weave for him A fluctuant mutable world and dim, Where wavering masses bulge and gape Mysterious, and shape to shape Dies momently through whorl and hollow, And form and line and solid follow Solid and line and form to dream Fantastic down the eternal stream; An obscure world, a shifting world, Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled, Or serpentine, or driving arrows, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... cuttings, a slanting cut is made close below the lowest bud, while about an inch of wood is left above the upper bud. When possible, a heel of old wood is left at the lower end; or, still better, a whorl of buds, as roots usually start from each bud. The finished cuttings are tied in bundles, all butts one way, and are then ready to be heeled-in. This is done by burying in trenches, butts up, and covering with a ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick



Words linked to "Whorl" :   structure, calyx, construction, hairstyle, coif, verticil, hair, dreadlock, hairdo, hair style, crimp, forelock, hank, ringlet, corolla, sausage curl, coiffure, round shape



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