gyre

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“
Marcus Eriksen: The size of the gyre is the entire garbage patch.

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Definitions (10)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A circular or spiral form; a vortex: "rain swirling the night into tunnels and gyres” (Anthony Hyde).
  2. noun A circular or spiral motion, especially a circular ocean current.
  3. intransitive verb To whirl.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (46)

  • Thus the notion of the cycle being in fact a rising gyre, in which the possibility of the next young dynasty beginning at a higher level than the last time around was acknowledged and made a goal. —  THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT - Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Simulations now show that probably the Orbiter slammed into the atmosphere at high speed, heating up and tumbling, until about one minute into this gyre, the hydrazine fuel on board reached ignition temperature. —  F ;SF; - vol 099 issue 01 - July 2000
  • Like a hawk rising on desert thermals, the SR-75 was ascending in the steep gyre which would keep it above Area 51 even as it headed for the the stratosphere. —  chronospace
  • The Spine is a widening gyre, springing from one central point. —  Planet Atheism
  • The best known major gyre is the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, which includes the Gulf Stream. —  Green Options
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin gȳrus, from Greek gūros.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Formerly also gire (Middle English ger, gere, from Old French gere, gire); = Spanish giro = Portuguese gyro = Italian giro, from Latin gyrus, a circle, a circuit, ring, from Greek γῦρος, a circle, ring; cf. γυρός, adjective, round.
  2. from Middle English giren, from Latin gyrare, turn, from gyrus, a circle: see gyre, n., and gyrate.
 

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/dʒaɪr/
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