Other forms: maelstroms
A maelstrom is a powerful whirlpool, or a scene of violent confusion. A maelstrom of activity, caught in the maelstrom, a political maelstrom.
The word was the name of a real whirlpool off the coast of Norway, and it reached English through Dutch. The figurative use is now much the commoner and means chaos with a pull to it.
1nounmaelstromA powerful whirlpool, or a scene of violent confusion.
“The small boat was pulled into the maelstrom and spun round and round.”
maelstrom is a whirlpool.
It was the name of one whirlpool off the coast of Norway that was said to pull down every ship that came near. Now any wild rush of events is a maelstrom.
hooks ontoship
From the Dutch name of a great whirlpool off the coast of Norway.
Proto-Indo-European
*melh₂- — to crush, grind
Dutch
maelstrom — whirlpool
English, today
maelstrom
Built from
The word was originally the name of a giant whirlpool off Norway in the Arctic Ocean which was said to destroy all ships that came close to it, likely the actual tidal pool system of Moskstraumen in Lofoten. It is borrowed from early modern Dutch maelstrom (“whirlpool”) obsolete (modern Dutch maalstroom), from malen (“to whirl around; to grind”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European melh₂- (“to crush, grind”)) + stroom (“stream; river; current or flow of water or other liquid”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European srew- (“to flow, stream”)), and was popularized by Edgar Allen Poe’s short story A Descent into the Maelström (1841). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA