Other forms: whirlpools
A whirlpool is the spinning circle of water that pulls things down. Caught in a whirlpool, a whirlpool forms, the whirlpool's pull.
Real ones form where tides run through narrow channels, and the famous named ones off Norway and Scotland are dangerous to small boats rather than the ship-swallowing holes of legend. The word also names the spinning bath, from the same picture.
1nounwhirlpoolA spinning circle of water that pulls things down.
“The small boat was caught in a whirlpool and spun round and round.”
whirlpool is a movement of water.
From whirl plus pool, apparently combining two Old English words, one of which already meant an eddy.
Old English
hwierfel — whirlpool
Middle English
*whirlpole
English, today
whirlpool
From earlier whirlpoole, whirlpole, apparently from Middle English whirlpole, potentially coalescing Old English hwierfel (“whirlpool”) and Old English hwierfepōl (“whirlpool”). Equivalent to whirl + pool. Cognate with Scots quhirlepole, whirle-pule (“whirlpool”). Compare also whirlpit. Eclipsed non-native gurges, borrowed from gurges.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA