whirl

1. 1.

   confused movement

   “he was caught up in a whirl of work”

   “a commotion of people fought for the exits”

   Synonymscommotion

   Broadermovement
2. 2.

   the shape of something rotating rapidly

   Synonymsswirlvortexconvolution

   Broaderround shape
3. 3.

   a usually brief attempt

   “he took a crack at it”

   “I gave it a whirl”

   Synonymscrackflinggopassoffer

   Broaderattempt
4. 4.

   the act of rotating rapidly

   “he gave the crank a spin”

   “it broke off after much twisting”

   Synonymsspintwirltwisttwisting

   Broaderrotation

   Narrowerpirouettebirling

Other forms of whirl

plural

whirls·

past tense

whirled·

present participle

whirling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about whirl

What does whirl mean?

whirl means "turn in a twisting or spinning motion". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in whirl?

whirl has 1 syllable: whirl. In IPA it is /ˈwɝl/.

What is another word for whirl?

Close synonyms include twirl, swirl, twiddle, birl, spin. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is whirl a common word?

whirl is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with whirl?

1 word rhymes with whirl. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.