Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The rapid descent of an aircraft in a steep, spiral spin.
- n. Informal A loss of emotional control sometimes resulting in emotional collapse.
Wiktionary
- n. The rapid, uncontrollable descent of an aircraft in a steep spiral.
- n. A severe mental or emotional collapse; emotional breakdown.
- n. Any sharp, sustained, often uncontrollable descent or decline.
WordNet 3.0
- n. loss of emotional control often resulting in emotional collapse
- n. rapid descent of an aircraft in a steep spiral
Etymologies
- Compound of tail + spin. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The climate is in tailspin What are you waiting for?”
“My theory on the tailspin is because the Indians are built around so many talented young players who found winning easy last year.”
“SNOW: He really has, and that word tailspin just as indicative of how fierce, though, the competition is here.”
“This notion that the Albemarle economy is in a tailspin is absolute bunk.”
“Microsoft is sinking fast in this market already, and whether Windows Phone 7 can pull them out of their tailspin is the billion-dollar question.”
“She passed away suddenly the summer before our senior year, and it threw Jamie in the kind of tailspin I can only imagine.”
“Mr. LEVIN: That created a kind of tailspin for him because he realized that this guy could do something that he couldn't do.”
“Meredith goes into a mini-freakout about how terrible a mother she'd be, but it's like an eighth of the kind of tailspin she used to fall into, and pretty much holds it together.”
“Obama's speech in New York on Monday will push Congress to take action on regulatory reform to prevent the kind of tailspin that the economy went through last year.”
“An item from Fox News claims that Lohan's career is now in a "tailspin," and follows up on that headline with a nail-in-the-coffin quote from Hollywood publicist Michael Levine, former PR man for Michael Jackson: "Her employability over the next five years is impossible.”
The Washington Post: Lindsay Lohan: The aftermath of the sentence
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tailspin’.
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Spinning
This list is basically an excuse for me to list the word wool four times in a row.
wool, spin, spinning, cotton, scribble, scribbler, scribbling, spindle whorl, spindlewhorl, card, card-clothing, carding-machine and 68 more...
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simple & useful9
heartrendingly, rancorous, ferocity, earful, dispiriting, dandification, ascribing, monotonic, smattering, yesteryear, sword of damocles, blubbering and 104 more...
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Words I'd Like to Use Someday
thundersnow, phantasmagoria, mercurial, chimerical, taciturn, paraclete, lapis lazuli, flay, guttersnipe, wonky, misanthrope, kestrel and 583 more...
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Compounds That Look Freakish
You know who you are, freakish compounds. Though very useful, some of these words just don't seem right together--or, their meanings are so far from what the two (or more) component words suggest t...
nightjar, bullfinch, grassquit, bananaquit, ovenbird, waxwing, stonechat, wheatear, bushtit, wrentit, starthroat, godwit and 158 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, T
torquate, thalassocracy, toothsome, travois, tempestuous, tone, tincture, tripwire, tether, trill, tenacious, travesty and 355 more...
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Face Place ㋡
Facial expressions, methods for determining emotional states, and general terms for passionate emotional states.
I've put specific-emotion words in these other lists of mine:
Hap...perfervid, vehement, demonstrative, fervent, torrid, frantic, agog, choler, moue, histrionic, dacrygelosis, verklempt and 92 more...
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Creative Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like what they mean, but they're not *technically* onomatopoetic.
(another edit: this list is morphing into something I can't quite describe. But I still like it.)ugly, icon, hang, weenie, bell, zit, ennui, sour, speed, rankle, muddle, disgruntle and 129 more...
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words
words
spartan, cram, quill, furor, rampart, enervate, placate, agitate, galvanize, spur, pricker, infuriate and 273 more...
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my dictionary
palatial, immaculate, sleep-deprived, Kleptocracy, customs brokerage, parochial, stagnation, egregious, rife, interdict, unassuming, extortion and 81 more...
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Those Daring Young Men and Their Flyi...
*sigh* I wish I had lived in the barnstorming era. In my flying days, I loved nothing more than flipping around in the air and landing in fields or on dirt runways. (^-^)
puddlejumpers, aviator, aviatrix, ace, flyboy, birdman, aeronaut, stunt pilot, formation flying, aerodrome, rudder, elevators and 65 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tailspin.
Comments
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