Other forms: swirling, swirls, swirled
To swirl is to move round and round in a twisting flow. Tea leaves in a cup, leaves in a gust, smoke off a cigarette.
The movement is loose and continuous, which separates it from spin: something that spins turns on a fixed point, and something that swirls travels while it turns. It works both ways round, since you can swirl the wine in a glass and the wine can swirl. As a noun a swirl is the pattern left behind, and a swirl of cream on a soup is deliberate decoration.
Old Norse
*svirla — to swirl
Middle English
swirlen — to eddy, swirl
English, today
swirl
From Middle English swirlen (“to eddy, swirl”), probably from Old Norse svirla (“to swirl”), a frequentative form of Old Norse sverra (“to swing, twirl”). Cognate with Scots swirl, sworl (“to eddy, swirl”), Norwegian Nynorsk svirla (“to whirl around; swirl”), Swedish sorla (“to murmur, buzz”), Dutch zwirrelen (“to swirl”). Compare also West Frisian swiere (“to reel, whirl”), Dutch zwieren (“to reel, swing around”), German Low German swirren (“to whizz, whirl or buzz around”), German schwirren (“to whirr, whizz, buzz”), Swedish svirra (“to whirr about, buzz, hum”), Danish svirre (“to whizz, whirr”). Related to English swarm.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 24 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word