maelstrom

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (2)  · 
So Yette returned to fill the empty chair at the Sabbath board, and the pedler's faith was justified My other chip from the maelstrom was a lad half grown.

View all »
Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A violent or turbulent situation: caught in the maelstrom of war.
  2. noun A whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • My mind was like a maelstrom, spiraling the thoughts round and round, and dredging them back up again. —  Omni: May 1994
  • It was my first and only media maelstrom, my 15 minutes of fame, or better yet, the day I became infamous. —  Aspen Times - Top Stories
  • In this maelstrom, there steps forward Bernard L. Madoff, the Einstein of Ponzi schemes, who operated his colossal con for twenty years without notice from regulators. —  CounterPunch
  • Colleagues and family members talk of Carter as an emotionally volatile, courageous man, one who may well have been unprepared for the maelstrom that erupted when his photo of the starving child appeared worldwide.
  • The only individual whom the liberal media and Democrat political operatives might have counted upon to change course under such a maelstrom is John McCain himself. —  MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 158 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Obsolete Dutch : Dutch malen, to grind, whirl (from Middle Dutch; see melə- in Indo-European roots) + Dutch stroom, stream (from Middle Dutch; see sreu- in Indo-European roots).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. An erroneous spelling (sometimes erroneously explained as ‘mill-stream’); properly *malestrom or *malstrom; formerly malestrand (see quot.), simulating strand; from Norwegian malstraum (little used) (= Danish malström), a great whirlpool in the sea, from mala (= Danish male), grind (see meal), + straum (= Danish ström), stream: see stream.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ˈmeɪlstrɑm/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a year.

Recently looked up

mawkish · fulminations · lacuna · assonance · prime

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Kansas City · spell it rite · put it in your pocket · A fly and a flea flew into a flue · She sells seashells by the seashore