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Whirl   /wərl/  /hwərl/   Listen
Whirl

verb
(past & past part. whirled; pres. part. whirling)
1.
Turn in a twisting or spinning motion.  Synonyms: swirl, twiddle, twirl.
2.
Cause to spin.  Synonyms: birl, spin, twirl.
3.
Flow in a circular current, of liquids.  Synonyms: eddy, purl, swirl, whirlpool.
4.
Revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis.  Synonyms: gyrate, reel, spin, spin around.
5.
Fly around.  Synonyms: tumble, whirl around.  "Rising smoke whirled in the air"



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"Whirl" Quotes from Famous Books



... was pouring itself down the narrow canyon in a crowded whirl of dry, clean flakes. Wen Ho, watchful, for his master was already a day or so beyond the promised date of his return, had started a fire on the hearth and spread a single cover on the table. He had drawn the green-and-gold curtains as ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... the vessel, and my strength nearly exhausted, I scarcely made a struggle for life, and resigned myself, in a few seconds, to die. But here again I was deceived, not having taken into consideration the natural rebound of the hull to windward. The whirl of the water upward, which the vessel occasioned in rolling partially back, brought me to the surface still more violently than I had been plunged beneath. Upon coming up I found myself about twenty yards from the hulk, as near as I could judge. She was lying keel up, rocking furiously from ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... now the bustle of the day,—the confused whirl of white gloves, kisses, bridemaids, and bridecakes, the losing of trunk-keys and breaking of lacings, the tears of mamma—God bless her!—and the jokes of irreverent Christopher, who could, for the life of him, see nothing so very dismal in the whole phantasmagoria, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... free themselves and follow. I caught Brownie by the bridle and soothed him as well as I could; but he was very excited and trembling, and kept sniffing. Then I saw what had frightened him, for a puff of wind brought a puff of smoke with it, and ahead of us I saw a dark column whirl up towards the sky. Even the youngest child who's lived in the bush knows what that means. When all the grass and everything is so dry, the least thing will start a fire. Sometimes campers-out are careless, and the wind blows sparks; sometimes even a piece of an old bottle left lying about will ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... puller and hauler was Eddie Glass. Perry Hale, who played fullback my sophomore year, was a great interferer. He was big, and strong and fast. On a straight buck through tackle, when he would be behind me, if there was not a hole in the proper place, he would whirl me all the way round and shoot me through a hole somewhere else. It would, of course, act as an impromptu delayed play. In one game I remember making a forty yard run to a touchdown on such ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... two, a third, a fourth — the girl's involuntary cry echoed the stumbling crash of the man thrashing, clawing, scrambling in the clenched jaws of the bear-trap amid a whirl of ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... them, with the exception of one, entitled "All round my Hat," enjoyed any extraordinary share of favour, until an American actor introduced a vile song called "Jim Crow." The singer sang his verses in appropriate costume, with grotesque gesticulations, and a sudden whirl of his body at the close of each verse. It took the taste of the town immediately, and for months the ears of orderly people were stunned ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... the check, Claire tried to think of some protest which would have any effect on the obese wits of the restaurant man. In face of his pink puffiness she gave it up. Her failure as a Citizeness Fixit sent her out of the place in a fury, carried her on in a dusty whirl till the engine spat, sounded tired and reflective, and said it guessed it wouldn't go any farther ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... cast off," said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, before the latter man's watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent whirl. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... God. Do you see? I didn't deny He exists. I didn't accuse Him of bad faith to us. How can He show either good faith or bad when He has made us no promises? He has merely set us on the dark planet and forced us to whirl with it on the wheel of time. And so, do you see, having turned away from God—and I had to, I had to in mere honesty—I simply lost Him. And having lost Him, there is nothing left to lose. Also, having once seen Him and then lost Him, I can't take up the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... focus what she saw, everything began to whirl and to spin around her, to dance a wild and idiotic saraband, which caused her to laugh, and to laugh, until her throat felt choked and her eyes hot; after which she remembered ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... Lawrence choked back a whirl of jealous suspicion that swept to his lips, and said from his corner, "Do! I'll have a ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... were leaping on each other and slaying, nor had either side any thought of ruinous flight. And many sharp darts were fixed around Kebriones, and winged arrows leaping from the bow-string, and many mighty stones smote the shields of them that fought around him. But he in the whirl of dust lay mighty and mightily fallen, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... bothered me when I was with her. "She is happy," I was assured, "very happy." She seemed pleased and contented enough, even if she developed, I thought, a sort of an inward look about her. She and I never discussed our—uh—people. We had a fast whirl for a couple of weeks. And then I'd quit my job with Uncle John, and we sort ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart

... air? Oh, the delight of it, this rapid passing through crisp air! and how well I was doing it, ten—twenty—fifty yards in safety! Why, it was quite easy. How disappointed dear old Billy would be! Then, suddenly, a check, a whirl through the air, a sense of chill and suffocation, blindness, deafness. What had happened?—Where was I?—What was this hard thing in my mouth? Why was I standing on my head? Where on earth were ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... steep street to my own house with my head in a whirl; it had not begun to clear when I came to the doorstep, on which I found a milk-can—and the man with the twisted nose. The milk-can told me the servants were all out; for, of course, Arthur, browsing ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... be that pass in peace; Mine passed in a whirl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul— Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole— I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate: To me, to me, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... minutes, it appeared that this sudden tempest was nothing to make fun over. The four girls, keeping close together, entered suddenly a gulch, the side of which broke the velocity of the wind. They stood there, the four ponies huddled together, in a whirl of ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion, Here taverns wooing to a pint of "purl," There mails fast ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of the unique prodigies of Washington is without limit. But marvels heaped together cease to be marvellous, and of all places in the world a museum is the most tiresome. So, amid the whirl and roar of winter-life in Washington, when one has no time to read, write, or think, and scarcely time to eat, drink, and sleep, when the days fly by like hours, and the brain reels under the excitement of the protracted debauch, life becomes ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... in a whirl, he managed to get himself into a chair. And all this while he was telling himself things; things like this: "Curlie, old boy, this is going to be strenuous. This man is powerful, magnetic, almost hypnotizing. He will find ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell

... The feet of your madness walk solemnly over you. They kick gravely at a carcass. Lie beneath them and watch Mallare dance away, whirl away with lecherous shadows in his arms. But she will die too. I am thinking of death. Mallare the ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht

... I see it now, and my sick brain Staggers and swoons! How often over me Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight In which I see the universe unrolled Before me like a scroll and read thereon Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl Dizzily round and round and round and round, Like tops across a table, gathering speed With every spin, to waver on the edge One instant—looking over—and the next To shudder and lurch forward out ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... difficult to follow you; but I go hobbling along after you with my thoughts, though what you say makes my head whirl round and round. Still I contrive to lay ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... attractive young woman," Stefan grinned. "Wow, what a mercy I brought some decent clothes, eh?" He was already stripped, and shaking out a handful of silk socks. Something clicked to the floor, but he did not notice it. The dressing proceeded in a whirl, Adolph much impressed by the splendors of his friend's toilet. A fine shirt of tucked linen, immaculate pumps, links of dull gold—his comrade in ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... the world. But he does not reproach me. How can he? I have not allowed him to say a word of love to me. I have been environed not only with flowers, colored lights, and sweet music, but also with the harmless platitudes of speech. I whirl away into the dance with Henry Seyhmoor! I have been ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... constellation is formed its current is called sun current, and here it continues to whirl with all its subordinate currents, planet, planetoid, ...
— ABC's of Science • Charles Oliver

... devoting to her were due mainly to his desire to enjoy the society of the beautiful and agreeable Mistress of the Robes. The dauphiness was annoyed. Naturally of a retiring disposition, very fond of books and of music, she soon wearied of the perpetual whirl of fashion and frivolity, and gradually withdrew as much as possible from the society of the court. She imbibed a strong dislike to Madame de Maintenon, which dislike Madame de Montespan did every thing in her power to increase. The dauphiness became very unhappy. She soon found that ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... and what a time Chad and Jack had, snaking logs out of the mountains with two, four, six—yes, even eight yoke of oxen, when the log was the heart of a monarch oak or poplar—snaking them to the chute; watching them roll and whirl and leap like jack-straws from end to end down the steep incline and, with one last shoot in the air, roll, shaking, quivering, into a mighty heap on the bank of Kingdom Come. And then the "rafting" of those logs—dragging them into the pool of the creek, lashing them together with saplings driven ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... seemed to promise so auspiciously for her reign." But so far from putting himself forward or being thrust forward by their common friends as an aspirant for her hand, while she was yet only on the edge of that strong tide and giddy whirl of imposing power and dazzling adulation which was too likely to sweep her beyond his grasp, it was resolved by King Leopold and the kindred who were most concerned in the relations of the couple, that, to give time for matters to settle down, for the young Queen to know ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... letter, half disclosed, is the photograph of an officer. It is strangely familiar as Abbot steps towards it. Then—the roar of the drums seems deafening; the walls of the little room seem turning upside down; his brain is in some strange and sudden whirl; but there in his hands he holds, beyond all question—his own picture—a photograph by Brady, taken when he was in Washington during the previous summer. He has not recovered his senses when there is an uneasy ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... the church of the Scalzi, and pushing open the leathern door wandered up the nave under the whirl of rose-and-lemon angels in Tiepolo's great vault. It was not a church in which one was likely to run across sight-seers; but he presently remarked a young lady standing alone near the choir, and assiduously applying her field-glass ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... chariot-rider, golden-helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, Saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear, O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third firmament of heaven; hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless youth! Shed down a kindly ray from above upon ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... beating of his heart, for he remembers a face on earth that is fairer than hers, and he begs to go. With a sigh she fits him a car of cloud, with the fire-fly steed chained on behind, and he hurries away to the northern sky whence the meteor comes, with roar and whirl, and as it passes it bursts to flame. He lights his lamp at a glowing spark, then wheels away to the fairy-land. His king and his brothers hail him stoutly, with song and shout, and feast and dance, and the revel is kept ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... sweet, wild abandon, and, as if in response to an incantation, the sky was reft asunder and the moon rushed forth, free for the moment of the clutching clouds, fugitive, headlong, a shining Maenad of the heavens, surrounded by the rush and whirl that had whelmed earth and its waters and was hurrying them to an unknown, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Shack and begun to shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all keepin' time to the music, or what I spoze they called music, their hair hangin' loose, their yellin' fearful, and then they begun to whirl like a top spinnin' round, faster and faster, whirlin' and howlin' and shriekin' till they couldn't howl or whirl any longer. Then the meetin' broke up as you may say, they formed a half circle agin round the Shack, bowed to the ground before him and fell ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... amiable flow of paradox soon runs out. The end of the book is just a wild whirl, a nightmare with a touch of the cinematograph. People chase one another, in one instance they quite literally chase themselves. And the ending has all the effect of a damaged film that cannot be stopped, on the large ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... whirl, where sank the ship, The boat spun round and round; And all was still, save that the hill Was ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... passing seemed to be all in a tremble, with its leaves showing white against the dark lilac background of the clouds, murmuring together in an agitated manner. The tops of the larger trees began to bend to and fro, and dried leaves and grass to whirl about in eddies over the road. Swallows and white-breasted swifts came darting around the britchka and even passing in front of the forelegs of the horses. While rooks, despite their outstretched wings, were laid, as it were, on ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... is a lure for many creatures of land and sea and sky. The moth and the bat whirl about a flame; the sea bird dashes its body against the bright glass of the lonely tower; wild deer come to see what has disturbed the dark 15 of the forest; and fish of different kinds leap at a torch. Red Chicken put a match to ours when we were all in readiness. The brilliant gleam cleft the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... she had herself accompanied the soldier of fortune to the Flying Mercury. The Colonel gave her his arm, and the talk between this pair of conspirators ran high and lively. The Countess, indeed, was in a whirl of pleasure and excitement; her tongue stumbled upon laughter, her eyes shone, the colour that was usually wanting now perfected her face. It would have taken little more to bring Gordon to her feet - or so, at least, she believed, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... outside. Again the snow had ceased. In the forest he could hear the whirl of machinery and the crashing of the falling timber. He stood for a moment with clenched hands, with unseeing eyes, with ears in which was ringing still the memory of that low, passionate cry. And then the fit passed. He looked down ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... years of great progress. But this progress was confined almost wholly to the North. In the South, living in 1860 was about the same as it had been in 1830, or even in 1800. As a Southern orator said of the South, "The rush and whirl of modern civilization passed ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... the night! He comes in the night! He softly, silently comes; While the little brown heads on the pillows so white Are dreaming of bugles and drums. He cuts through the snow like a ship through the foam, While the white flakes around him whirl; Who tells him I know not, but he findeth the home Of each good little boy ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... French Revolution was, no one has yet told us. Read "Carlyle" backward or forward and it is grand: it puts your head in a whirl of heroic intoxication, but it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... he crossed the alkali All his thoughts flew on ahead To the little band at cow-ranch thinking not of danger near; With his quirt's unceasing whirl And the jingle of his spurs Little brown Chapo bore the cowboy o'er ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... flirted the cape, and still in front of the blazing eyes he held it, and behind him, past his horse's withers, he whipped it, and with that, with but a single word, and drawing in on his reins, he seemed to lift his horse off the ground, to whirl him on his hind heels, almost without moving from his tracks; and the bull rushed ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... sea their place possest, Nor that cerulean canopy which hangs O'ershadowing all, each undistinguish'd lay, And one dead form all Nature's features bore; Unshapely, rude, and Chaos justly nam'd. Together struggling laid, each element Confusion strange begat:—Sol had not yet Whirl'd through the blue expanse his burning car: Nor Luna yet had lighted forth her lamp, Nor fed her waning light with borrowed rays. No globous earth pois'd inly by its weight, Hung pendent in the circumambient sky: The sky was not:—Nor Amphitrite ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... sudden set of the wind, came in one fell sound the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant, jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas "spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead." He had never before so suffered, nor did he again; but this was his description to me next day, and his excuse for having failed in a promise to send me his title. Only two days later, however, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... all that. But I manage to hobble after you with my thoughts, though they whirl round and round, but I contrive to hold ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... dashed forward; while you, on horseback, threw yourself between her and him. There was a terrible clashing of swords; and then he, too, fell. Then you lifted her on to your horse, and for a short time there was a whirl of conflict. Then you rode off with three men, behind one of whom her maid Annette was sitting. That is all she knows of it, except what you told ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... I have my light car outside. I suppose, since you've been converted to the town, that your idea of rural sport is to have a little whirl between bicycle cops in Central Park and then a mug of sticky ale in some stuffy rathskeller under a fan that can't stir up as many revolutions in a week as Nicaragua can ...
— Options • O. Henry

... after the stone had left the sling, it could fly away from the earth to a distance which the most casual observation would prove to be proportionate to the speed of its flight. Extremely rapid motion, then, might project bodies from the earth's surface off into space; a sufficiently rapid whirl would keep them there. Anaxagoras conceived that this was precisely what had occurred. His imagination even carried him a step farther—to a conception of a slackening of speed, through which the heavenly bodies would lose their centrifugal ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... with his own joy of life, set all the household in a whirl. There was nothing but cooking, festivity, dancing, hilarity, so long as he remained ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... perfection, in all young vegetable cells. If such be the case, the wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to the dulness of our hearing; and could our ears catch the murmur of these tiny Maelstroms, as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells which constitute each tree, we should be stunned, as with the roar ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Of his mental condition we learn something from these words: "In the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps and hammers—in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man, a helpless and defenseless creature, finds himself placed, not secure for a moment, that on an imprudent motion a wheel may not seize ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... useful to-day, at all events," Mollie agreed. "I think I shall teach him that new aeroplane whirl in the hesitation he is ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope

... I forgot we hadn't had supper!" laughed Eleanor, jumping up and catching Polly by the arm to whirl her away. ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... granite, Pointing, threatening, Thrust fiercely up at me; And near the edge, their menace Would whirl me down. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... as far as I can remember, the exact substance of what Manderson said to me that night. I went to my room, changed into day clothes, and hastily threw a few necessaries into a kit-bag. My mind was in a whirl, not so much at the nature of the business as at the suddenness of it. I think I remember telling you the last time we met'-he turned to Trent—'that Manderson shared the national fondness for doings things in a story-book style. Other things being ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... soft and fair above, Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,— All on high the smile of love, All below the frown of death: Waves that whirl in angry spite With a phosphorescent light Gleaming ghastly on the night,— Like the pallid sneer of Doom, So malicious, cold, and white, Luring to this watery tomb, Where in fury and in fright Winds and waves together fight Hideously amid the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... me!—my head is beginning to whirl again! Please don't be angry, my lord, but what ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... rushed to the side and flung out one a rope, another a cask, a third a spar—in short, any object of which Martin Holt might lay hold. At the moment when I struggled up to my feet I caught sight of a massive substance which cleft the air and vanished in the whirl of the waves. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... away, wear out. gemido m. groan, moan, sigh. gemir moan, howl, whistle. generoso, -a noble, illustrious, excellent, generous. gente f. people, race, nation. gentil adj. elegant, handsome, graceful. gesto m. face, expression, gesture. girar revolve, hover, whirl. giro m. turn, motion, roll, circling. gloria f. glory, fame, pleasure, bliss, honor, heaven. glorioso -a glorious. goce m. joy. golpe m. stroke, blow, knock, striking, clash, throw, cast. golpear(se) strike, hit, beat. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... indicated by these movements are incredible. An up-rush and down-rush at the sides has been measured of twenty miles a second; a side-rush or whirl, of one hundred and twenty miles a second. These tempests rage from a few days to half a year, traversing regions so wide that our Indian Ocean, the realm of storms, is too small to be used for comparison; then, as they cease, the advancing sides of the spots approach each ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... overthrow what is firm, O ye men, and whirl about what is heavy, ye pass through the trees of the earth, through the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... space to turn in, no chance to whirl his lariat, even for a side throw. There was no time to spin a loop. But his hand detached the rope, flying fingers found the free end as he pivoted in the saddle, thighs ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... blooming sons thy name revere, Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear,— That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow O'er their last scene of happiness below. Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along, The feeble veterans of some former throng, Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd, Are swept forever from this busy world; Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth, While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth; Say if remembrance days like these endears Beyond the rapture of succeeding years? Say, can ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... Dale's mental distress was so acute that his ideas seemed to blend in one vast confused whirl. Some answer was imperatively necessary, and no answer could evolve itself. Hesitation would be interpreted as the sign of a guilty conscience. And in this dreadful arrest of his faculties, the sense of bodily fatigue accentuated ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... sword in a circle! The whirl and the flash of fire, Burn the years like a cinder and claim for their monstrous hire! Croon of cradle, be silent! And down, thou curtain of doom! Weird as sobs of the midnight the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... His head was in a whirl. He only half heard the notes of the tutor's sonata as they rose and fell on his ear. Presently, with beating ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... hustle in the house as all that was most valuable was gathered, and I myself could but take my arms from the wall, and don mail-shirt and helm and sword and seax {2} and then look on, useless enough, with my thoughts in a whirl all ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... on the old footing. The newly elected and still insecure German king at first remained neutral; but in the autumn of 1525 the current of Lutheranism began to run so strongly in Denmark as to threaten to whirl away every opposing obstacle. This novel and disturbing phenomenon was mainly due to the zeal and eloquence of the ex-monk Hans Tausen and his associates, or disciples, Peder Plad and Sadolin; and, in the autumn of 1526, Tausen was appointed one of the royal chaplains. The three ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... his handful with a confiding smile. A dubious nod satisfied him, and presently he started on the play he had devised. He took a tuft of the white down, and gently shook it free of his fingers close to the whirl of the wheel. The wind of the swift motion took it, spun it round and round in widening circles, till it floated above like a slow white moth. Little Rol's eyes danced, and the row of his small teeth shone in a silent laugh of delight. Another and another of the white ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... of them a week, and they madden me. They keep my brain in a frenzied whirl. Grady, this man must die. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. I have a wife and children; I conduct a great paper; I educate the public mind. My life is valuable to my country. Destroy this poet, and future generations will praise your name. He must be wiped out, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... laugh. To the young the performance suggests that of the circus, and until wearied of the monotony of it, is perhaps as amusing; but to this more thoughtful observer it is melancholy to see men so debase themselves. The ring in which these people whirl about was full of deluded men, on the day of our visit, self-proclaimed disciples. About twenty of them commenced at a signal to turn rapidly about on their heels and toes, without a moment's pause, for a period of some ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... a life iv quite an' iligant luxury. Wud ye like a line on me daily routine? Well, in th' mornin' a little spin in me fifty-horse power 'Suffer-little-childher,' in th' afthernoon a whirl over th' green wathers iv th' bay in me goold-an'-ivory yacht, in th' avenin' dinner with a monkey or something akelly as good, at night a few leads out iv th' wrong hand, some hasty wurruds an' so to bed. Such is th' spoortin' life in Rhode Island, th' home iv Roger Williams an' others ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... jolly and I can't deny that I have been outrageously frivolous for a missionary! But to save my life I can't conjure up the ghost of a regret! And what is more, I have been contaminating Dixie! I have kept her in such a giddy whirl that she says I have paralysed her conscience! I have dressed her up and trotted her along to lunches, teas and dinners, to concerts on sea and land, and once, Oh! awful confession, I bulldozed her into going to the theatre! The consequence is that she has gotten entirely well and ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... who now again was seized with that hideous brain-whirl that in fever is simple delirium, "bring her back, ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... the train thundered into the terminal at Thirty-third Street, New York was wrapped in a scudding whirl of white dotted dizzily with lights. Already to Kenny, buoyant, excited and inclined to stride around in purposeless circles, the lonely farm was very far away. He was back again in his own world with ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... God with mind, 'tis thine to choose, Wheather to follow him with love and soar, Or dream Him myth and, rather than adore, Plunge headlong into Nature's whirl and ooze. Thine is full freedom. Ah! could God do more To liken thee to Him, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... wife, reading or talking, smoking, and, in earlier days, enjoying a glass of beer and some food. His love of reading was a godsend to him when the waters were more than usually troubled and his brain was in a whirl. ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... woe that we have seen, — Look with a just regard, And with an even grace, Here on the shattered corpse of a shattered king, Here on a suffering world where men grow old And wander like sad shadows till, at last, Out of the flare of life, Out of the whirl of years, Into the mist they go, Into the ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... the lawyer finds suits and briefs of right and reason, the preacher finds prophecies superior to Isaiah or Jeremiah, the historian finds lofty romance more interesting than facts and the actor "struts and frets" in the Shaksperian looking-glass of to-day, in the mad whirl of the mimic stage, with all the pomp and glory of departed warriors, statesmen, fools, princes ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... in winter, when the snowflakes Whirl in eddies round the lodges,... "There," they cry, "comes Pau-Puk-Keewis; He is dancing thro' the village, He is gathering ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... bigger pair; first he would follow her about, sing to her, parade himself, and show off; then she coquetted, and charmed him with her bewitching and altogether indescribable call, "sw-e-e-t." Then they were off in a whirl of excitement together, flitting hither and thither, singing and dancing through the air, life ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... patch of turf, now heavy with dew, beside the sign-post. Upon this he sat down, and with his elbows on his knees, and head between his hands, strove to still the giddy whirl in his brain. And as his folly and its bitterness found him out, the poor fool rocked himself, and cursed the day when he was born. If any one yet doubt that Mr. Moggridge was an inspired singer, let him turn to that sublime aspiration ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a whirl of starched cotton skirts, rushed to the pillar-box at the corner of the Park, and in five minutes' time was back at the bedroom door to proclaim her obedience. Cornelia was still standing in the middle of the room. It appeared to the maid that she had not altered her position by as much as ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... she said, in her low rich voice, and sniffled sweetly and gravely upon him. Then, with her disengaged hand, she put the hair lightly off his throbbing forehead. He was in such a rapture and whirl of happiness that he could hardly speak. At last he gasped out, "My mother has seen you, and admires you beyond measure. She will learn to love you soon: who can do otherwise? She will love you ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the fireplace. The flames leapt eagerly about a great oak log which hissed fitfully on top of the glowing coals contained in the big iron fire-basket. The grate was bare and tidy. As the young man looked at the fire, a little whirl of blue smoke whisked out of the wide fireplace and eddied into the room. Robin sniffed. The room smelt smoky. Now he remembered he had noticed it as ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... doeth his good by stealth; the wicked one cometh and soweth his tares among the wheat. The lover and the lustful person, the thief and the thinker, the preacher and the poacher, are abroad in the night. In factories and mills, beside the ceaseless whirl of machinery, stand men to whom day is night and night day. In cities the guardians of the midnight go hither and thither with measured step under the drizzling rain. No man cares that they are lonely and cold. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation. He could understand, in a vague way, that for some unexplained reason things were going well for him, but beyond that his mind was in a whirl. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... parties; and, if they are of the right kind, our social nature is improved, and our spirits cheered up. But many of them are not of the right kind; and our young people, night after night, are kept in the whirl of unhealthy excitement until their strength fails, and their spirits are broken down, and their taste for ordinary life corrupted; and, by the time the spring weather comes, they are in the doctor's hands, or sleeping in the cemetery. The certificate ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... jumping to catch the general's horse, and pick the general off the ground. In the meantime my horse had got frightened at the staff and flag that was dragging on the ground, with one end in the socket in the stirrup, the pole tickling him in the ribs, and he began to dance around, and whirl, and knock members of the color-guard off their horses, and they stampeded to the woods leaving me in the road, on a frightened horse, whirliing around, unmanageable, the start striking trees and horses, until ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... Such a bewildering whirl of events! The J. G. H. is breathless. Incidentally, I am on the way toward solving my problem of what to do with the children while the carpenters and plumbers and masons are here. Or, rather, my precious brother has solved ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... is this love, that now on angel wing Sweeps us amid the stars in passionate calm; And now with demon arms fast cincturing, Drops us, through all gyrations of keen pain, Down the black vortex, till the giddy whirl Gives fainting respite to the ghastly brain? O happy they for whom the Possible Opens its gates of madness, and becomes The Real around them!—such to whom henceforth There is but one to-morrow, the next morn, Their wedding-day, ever one step removed, The husband's foot ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... In which event, I'll whirl on to something more productive, and you can pick up your own tab for those half-gallons of ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... along with the sheer joy of living, the themes being singularly fresh and bright. The whole number is written in a brilliant and masterly manner, requiring a polished pianoforte technique to secure its full effect, especially in the exultant whirl and rush in the final page. A comparison of this piece with the In Autumn of the Woodland Sketches (Op. 51) makes the great advancement of MacDowell in the technique of composition obvious even to the tyro. The Joy of ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... seconds more, and the gigantic water-spout threw itself on the OMBU, and caught it up in its whirl. The tree shook to its roots. Glenarvan could fancy the caimans' teeth were tearing it up from the soil; for as he and his companions held on, each clinging firmly to the other, they felt the towering OMBU give way, and the next minute it fell right over with a terrible ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... vanished echoes shrieks the shrill pipe of war, with trembling drum. We hear a yearning sigh of the Siren strain before it is swept away in the tide and tumult of strife. Beneath the whirl and motion, the flash and crash of arms, we have glimpses of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... with Hugh Carnaby? Such a woman might surely have sold herself to great advantage; and yet—odd incongruity—she did not impress one as socially ambitious. Her mother, the ever-youthful widow, sped from assembly to assembly, unable to live save in the whirl of fashion; not so Sibyl. Was she too proud, too self-centred? And ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... minute's lull following the first storm herald, there was a wild scrambling for wraps and lunch baskets. Then the darkness thickened and the storm's fury burst upon the crowd—a mad lashing of bending tree tops, a blinding whirl of dust filling the air, the thunder's terrific cannonade, the incessant blaze of lightning, the rattling of the distant rain; and above all these, unlike them all, a steady, dreadful roaring, coming ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... sympathy. With hasty steps he drew near to the two officers, bowed over and questioned them kindly. They recognized his voice—that voice which had so often inspired them to bold deeds in the wild whirl of battle, but whose tones were ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... in a whirl. I seem to be a stranger to myself. Formerly I didn't dare speak out from my heart until I'd been with a person a long, long time. And now my heart is always open, and I at once say things I wouldn't have dreamed of before, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... "Ah, yes! You may be sure there is a great deal of good motive power in women, but most of it is lost for want of knowledge and means to apply it. It works like the sails of a windmill not attached to the machinery, which whirl round and round with incredible velocity and every evidence of strength, but serve no better purpose than to show which way ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... America, as we drive out from the village, and catch an answering cheer in return. Everyone is determinedly happy, but happy or not, they have always a good word for our country. Other songs and scenes are caught as we whirl on over the valley-road and through the settlements; peasants peer at us from the wayside or from the occasional chalets near by, with pleasant salute and good wishes. At last, and with real regret, we have reached our destination; Bagneres de Bigorre ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... how that galleon sank, Could I but bring you to that hollow whirl, The black gulf in mid-ocean, where that wreck Went thundering down, and round it hell still roars, That were a tale to snap all fiddle-strings." "Tell me," ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go)—the vast space of the sky overhead so clear, and the buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl in majestic spirals and discs; just over the surface of the pond, two large slate-color'd dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circling and darting and occasionally balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all the time, (are they not showing off for ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... all Jack's assurances, felt terribly anxious lest, after all, something should at the last moment go wrong, looked fearfully at the little craft's stern, expecting every instant to see the foaming whirl of water there which would proclaim that the boat's propeller was working; but, save for a very slight momentary disturbance of the scummy surface, there was no result, and presently a very excited individual was seen to emerge ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... sign of it must Mr. Carlisle see; and as for Dr. Cairnes, Eleanor could never get a chance for a safe talk with him. Somebody was always near, or might be near. The very effort to hide her thoughts grew sometimes irksome; and the whirl of engagements and occupations in which she lived gave her a stifled feeling. She could not even indulge herself in solitary consideration of that which there was ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... no means an easy job. "Ease her a bit," said the first lieutenant,—"there—shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the men get the canvas in"——whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee foreyardarm into the sea. "Up with the helm—heave him the bight of a rope." We kept away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the prisoners on ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination, for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and play the part of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... a dimple may make your senses whirl but it is not sufficient basis for marriage. There are things of vastly greater importance, though of course this does not seem possible ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... thou beholdest, Achilles our boldest." And what wilt thou reply? Draw tight the rein Lest that fiery soul of thine Whirl thee out of the listed plain, Past the olives, and o'er the line. Dire and grievous the charge he brings. See thou answer him, noble heart, Not with passionate bickerings. Shape thy course with a sailor's art, Reef the canvas, shorten the sails, Shift them edgewise to shun the gales. ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... appointment already? He would have a long while to wait. The act had seemed to him nothing, the recollection of it now made him shudder. All at once, the scene stood out to him in a lurid light, and through this he seemed to see a horror in Elizabeth Royal's face. For one moment the whirl of anguish and remorse blinded him. The next, that Archdale pride, so grand in a worthy cause, so fatal when in the hands of caprice and passion, was driving him on again. But as he was about to speak, the surgeon's voice by his bed commanded him to stop, for his own sake and for others. "Not ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... bred. He knew that there were four men watching him as he fumbled awkwardly with his rope. He knew that in spite of their grave faces they were laughing inwardly. He found that to hold the coil of rope in his left hand while that same hand must keep a tight rein upon his mount, to whirl the widening loop with his right, throwing it at just the right second with just the right force, was one of the things which in pictures looked to be so easy and which were not at all easy to accomplish. He grew hot and red as he became entangled ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... origin of the world, and lays it down that on these points truth cannot be attained. The universe, he goes on to say, rests on no material basis, much less need we suppose the earth to need one. Sun, moon, and stars, whirl about without any support; earth therefore may well be supposed to do the same. The earth is the centre of the universe, whose motions are circular and imitate those of the gods. [74] The universe is not finite as some Stoics assert, for its roundness ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... had nothing to do, Colonel Gilbert found himself thrown into a whirl of work, or what would have been a whirl with a man less calm and placid. Very much at ease, in white linen clothes, he sat in his room in the bastion, and transacted the affairs of his command with a leisurely good nature which showed his complete ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... this discovery had a bitter taste. I did not know what to do. My mind was in a whirl. I had some few letters and papers in my pockets by which I had expected—after a time—to assure the consul of my identity. But it seemed that I wasn't to be given a chance to explain who ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... treaty with France is broken, I suppose it will be Gelders again. If it comes to that, Sir Karl—but I'll not say what I'll do. My head is full of schemes from morning till night, and when I sleep my poor brain is a whirl of visions. Self-destruction, elopement, and I know not what else appeal to me. How far is it to Styria, Sir ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... Solitaries are in the city. Their formidable cudgels, studded with nails, whirl around like monstrances of steel. One can hear the crash of things being broken in the houses. Intervals of silence follow, and then the loud cries burst forth again. From one end of the streets to the other there is a continuous eddying of people in a state ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... with difficulty that he could realize that he was actually on his way to the great West. But the steady motion of the train, the whirl of the wheels, and the occasional blast of the engine's whistle, told him that he was not dreaming, and after enjoying for a while the sensation of travelling he began to think about what he should do when he ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... enemy's battery, the mark of their sharpshooters, the admiration of their leaders, waving his sword, cheering his fellow-soldiers with his bugle voice of victory,—young, brave, beautiful, for one moment erect and glowing in the wild whirl of battle, the next falling forward toward ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... with the operation of its industry, and as they mounted the wooden steps to the open outside door, an inner door swung ajar for a moment, and let out a roar mingled of the hum and whirl and clash of machinery and fragments of voice, borne to them on a whiff of warm, greasy air. "Of course it doesn't smell ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... a whirl and see," Starr offered cheerfully. He finished the pie in one more swallow, handed back the plate, and wiped his fingers, man-fashion, on ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... this duty of flying in his earlier days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, he dropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between the old leader and the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even triply resented. When she snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl on the three-year-old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes the young leader ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... should never have taken to the Royal stag-hounds is not at all surprising. It requires to be "to the manner born" to endure the vast jostling, shouting, thrusting mob of gentlemen and horse dealers, "legs" and horse-breakers, that whirl away after the uncarted deer. Without the revival of the old Court etiquette, which forbade any one to ride before royalty, his Royal Highness might have been ridden down by some ambitious butcher or experimental cockney horseman on a runaway. If the etiquette ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... Sanders, the father of Georgie. "His black eyes would be blazing with excitement. Leaving me to go down to the cellar, he would rush wildly to the barn and begin to send me signals along his experimental wires. If I noticed any improvement in his machine, he would be delighted. He would leap and whirl around in one of his 'war-dances' and then go contentedly to bed. But if the experiment was a failure, he would go back to his workbench and ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... She had grown up under the care of her grandmother, almost a stranger in her father's house, to which she returned in her gay young girlhood, and for the one time in her experience Miss Wilbur had been swept into a whirl of gayety as Helen's chaperon. Her charge had married early, and after a few years went abroad with her husband and little girl in search of health she was ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... that their road lay over the summits of the wild Vindhya hills, where dangers of all kinds are as thick as shells upon the shore of the deep. Here were rocks and jagged precipices making the traveller's brain whirl when he looked into them. There impetuous torrents roared and flashed down their beds of black stone, threatening destruction to those who would cross them. Now the path was lost in the matted thorny underwood ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... and shut away. The brightness of my ray.' 'Enough.' Our blower, on the bet, Swell'd out his pursy form With all the stuff for storm— The thunder, hail, and drenching wet, And all the fury he could muster; Then, with a very demon's bluster, He whistled, whirl'd, and splash'd, And down the torrents dash'd, Full many a roof uptearing He never did before, Full many a vessel bearing To wreck upon the shore,— And all to doff a single cloak. But vain the furious stroke; The traveller was stout, And kept the tempest out, Defied the hurricane, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... shame for my mother's remissness obliged me to cast down my eyes in awkward silence. But Mowbray, Heaven bless him for it! went on fluently. This was the moment, he said, before Miss Montenero should appear in public, and get into the whirl of the great world, before engagements should multiply and press upon her, as inevitably they would as soon as she had made her debut—this was the moment, and the only moment probably she would ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... I thanked you. The end of it was, they took a new fright at something, I believe, just at the top of a hill; and after that it was all a whirl. I hardly knew anything—till I found myself lying on the ground in the meadow. The horses had jumped the carriage and all clean over the fence. The fence was just below the foot of the hill; ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... have a dance called the Allemande, in which the men and women form a ring. Each man holding his partner round the waist, makes her whirl round with almost inconceivable rapidity: they dance in a grand circle, seeming to pursue one another: in the course of which they execute several leaps, and some particularly pleasing steps, when they turn, but so very difficult ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... boy, "for I remember well that when my kites lost their tails they used to whirl wildly about until they dashed their heads on the ground. This kite would be little better than a mad elephant without ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Whirl" :   logrolling, rotate, flow, feed, circumvolve, endeavour, attempt, movement, rotary motion, effort, go around, birling, revolve, try, birl, pass, twisting, course, move, rotation, round shape, motion, endeavor, vortex, pirouette, run



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