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  1. twirl love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To rotate or revolve briskly; swing in a circle; spin: twirled a baton to lead the band.
  2. v. To twist or wind around: twirl thread on a spindle.
  3. v. To move or spin around rapidly, suddenly, or repeatedly: The pinwheel twirled in the breeze.
  4. v. To whirl or turn suddenly; make an about-face: twirled in the direction of the noise.
  5. v. Baseball To pitch.
  6. n. The act of twirling or the condition of being twirled; a quick spinning or twisting.
  7. n. Something twirled; a twist: a twirl of cotton candy.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To cause to revolve rapidly; spin; whirl; turn round and round, usually in an idle, purposeless way; twiddle.
  2. To move round; especially, to revolve rapidly; be whirled about.
  3. To twine; wind; coil; curl.
  4. n. A rapid circular motion.
  5. n. A twist; a convolution; a curl; a flourish.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A movement where one spins round elegantly; a pirouette.
  2. v. intransitive To perform a twirl.
  3. v. transitive To rotate.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To move or turn round rapidly; to whirl round; to move and turn rapidly with the fingers.
  2. v. To revolve with velocity; to be whirled round rapidly.
  3. n. The act of twirling; a rapid circular motion; a whirl or whirling; quick rotation.
  4. n. A twist; a convolution.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a sharp bend in a line produced when a line having a loop is pulled tight
  2. n. the act of rotating rapidly
  3. v. turn in a twisting or spinning motion
  4. v. cause to spin

Etymologies

  1. Of Scandinavian origin, akin to Norwegian tvirla, Old High German dweran (German zwirlen, quirlen) and Icelandic þyrill (Wiktionary)
  2. Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (6)

Words with the same meaning

  1. twist
  1. convolution
  1. rotate
  1. turn
  1. twiddle
  1. rotation

hypernyms (10)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. flexure
  2. bend
  1. crimp
  2. fold
  1. plication
  2. crease
  1. rotate
  2. revolve
  1. go-around
  2. circumvolve

same context (5)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. unclasped
  1. uncoiled
  1. unclosed
  1. unroll
  1. clench

rhymes (27)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Berle
  2. Curl
  3. Earl
  4. Earle
  5. Erl
  1. Merle
  2. Pearl
  3. Perl
  4. Perle
  5. Shirl
  1. birle
  2. burl
  3. curl
  4. earl
  5. earle
  1. girl
  2. herl
  3. hurl
  4. kerl
  5. merl
  1. merle
  2. pearl
  3. shirl
  4. swirl
  5. unfurl
  1. whirl
  2. whorl

reverse dictionary (13)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. tirl
  2. twiddle
  1. twirk
  2. querl
  1. atwirl
  2. spin
  1. twist
  2. trundle
  1. twirl
  2. twire
  1. trill
  2. birl
  1. whirl

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. ccvcc

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Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘twirl’.

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Comments

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  • joeljewitt Super helpful thanks all! May 24, 2011

  • blafferty Those are great lists, pterodactyl! You might be interested in my snose list. May 24, 2011

  • pterodactyl Excellent point, rolig. And bilby, I think you're absolutely right -- the phenomenon that rolig describes is definitely related to phonesthemes.

    I have some phonestheme lists, in case anyone's interested. May 23, 2011

  • bilby In the area of phonesthemes here. May 23, 2011

  • rolig Would "twist" and "twirl" be evocative of twisting and twirling if they didn't mean what they mean? Would a non-English-speaker, upon hearing the word "twist" immediately think of rotation? I suspect that our feeling that these words somehow evoke the idea of spinning and winding may be related to other things, like our sense of the words twine, whirl, etc., as well as the onomatopoeia we associate with the initial w-/wh- sounds, as in wind, whip, whoosh, whizz, etc.

    As for what word might be used for such associations, the word you use is good: evocative. I also call them fibrous words. May 23, 2011

  • joeljewitt Twirl and twist aren't onomatopoeic (right?) but is there a word for what they are - ie evocative of what they describe? May 23, 2011

  • bilby Spaghetti. Jan 7, 2011

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‘twirl’ has been looked up 3514 times, added to 20 lists, commented on 7 times, and has a Scrabble score of 8.