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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



... I remarked. There were books all round the room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... was seriously enough certainly, but it had a ludicrous aspect. There was Arabella, without having the slightest idea of what could cause such a violent outbreak, tossed about like a whirligig by the usually calm, sedate, and self-possessed Hiram, who seemed suddenly transported into a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... inevitably became the wife, and the whirligig of Time brought in his revenges. The lady now found herself the most important member of her sex, in a dwelling filled with men. She had few women about her person, and the confidant of a great dame in old romance is, frequently enough, her chamberlain. These young men had ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... musicians are trying to compass the inane. You are trying to duplicate your dreams, dreams without a hint of the sun. The painter at least copies or interprets real life; while the composer dips his finger in the air, making endless sound-scrolls—noises with long tails and whirligig decorations like foolish fireworks—though I think the art of the future will be pyrotechnics. Mad, mad, I tell you! But whether mad or not matters little in our land of freedom, where all men are born unequal, where only the artists are sad. They are useless beings, openly derided, and ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... by, stolid and immovable; the Magyar blood is not in her, hers is the languorous Oriental blood, the supple, sinuous movements of the Levant. She watches this bacchanalian whirligig with a sneer upon her thin, red lips. Beside her Eros Bela too is still, the scowl has darkened on his face, his one eye leers across the group of twirling dancers to that one couple close ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... 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 ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... see what I mean by Rest. Rest is the loosing of the chains which bind us to the whirligig of the world, it is the passing into the centre of the Cyclone; it is the Stilling of Thought. For (with regard to this last) it is Thought, it is the Attachment of the Mind, which binds us to outer ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... its beauty, but of its usefulness in holding the sand in place; but, alas, "all men have not faith," and where the historian wrote Hudsonia tomentosa the antipathetic compositor set up Hudsonia tormentosa. That compositor was a Cape Cod man,—I would wager a dinner upon it. "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges," I hear him mutter, as he slips the ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... the Carmognole rioters. The little sparrow of a seamstress was quite undisturbed by the great events of the French Revolution, except as they had put everything at sixes and sevens and whirled away her own intimates in the mad whirligig. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... than a day's work, but the fever in my blood and brain urged me on to the arduous task of lopping off the huge branches; and my exertions did not cease until once more the world, with everything on it, began revolving like a whirligig, compelling me to desist and take a still longer rest. And sitting there I thought only of Yoletta. How would she look after that long seclusion? Pale, and sad too perhaps; and her sweet, soulful eyes—oh, would I now see in them ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... In the queer social whirligig from which she had so lately fled, it seemed natural enough that a shake of the box should have tossed Nat Fulmer into celebrity, and sent Violet Melrose chasing back from the ends of the earth to bask in his success. Susy knew that Mrs. Melrose belonged to the class of moral parasites; for ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the Capital to spend money—not to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace flounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether the champagne is real, or ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... sorry for it." And then he took his leave, and Janetta went to her room to bathe her hot face and to wonder at the way in which the whirligig of Time brings ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... haand, An tongue enuff for two. An if he went 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 wish he'd wed ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... have told you, that cards of invitation had been issued. The carriers were the Hours; twelve little, merry whirligig foot-pages, as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the persons invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday, and a few such Moveables, who ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

... the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for nuts—behold these are ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... I call Cumbervale back? Tell him that you have changed your whirligig mind, and are ready to marry him, if he will only take time by the forelock and return before you shift around again? I can easily do that. I can send a telegram that will over-take him and turn him back so promptly that he may be here in twenty-four hours! Come! ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth



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



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