▪ I. whirling, vbl. n.
(ˈhwɜːlɪŋ)
[f. whirl v. + -ing1.]
The action of the verb whirl.
1. A turning (swiftly) round; (rapid) rotation, revolution, or circling movement: spec. of air or water, as in a whirlwind or eddy; also of persons in a dance, etc.
spec. in Mech. (quot. 1894): see whirl v. 2.
| c 1398 Chaucer Fortune 11 So mochel hath yit thy whirlynge vp and down I-tawht me. 1423 Jas. I Kingis Q. clxv, Sum were slungin, Be quhirlyng of the quhele, vnto the ground. 1496 Bk. St. Albans, Fishing h v, Yf that there be a manere whyrlynge of water. 1582 Bentley Mon. Matrones ii. 3 This the same vnknowne gift or whurling in my hart, doth bring mee a new desire. 1616 B. Holyday Persius, Sat. v. 138 A base horse-keeper..whom if's Master turne about, I' th' moment of the Whirling he goes out. 1633 T. James Voy. 9 We came amongst the most strangest whirlings of the sea. 1636 in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 7 The countrie Wakes, and whirlings have appeer'd..like forraine pastimes. 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. i. 170 The Sholes probably caused some whirling about of the Tide. 1825 T. Hook Sayings Ser. ii. Passion & Princ. vii. III. 89 The rapid, and as he thought perilous, whirling of the..vehicle. 1835 Hood United Family ix, We none of us that whirling [sc. the waltz] love, Which both our parents disapprove. 1838 Hawthorne Amer. Note-bks. (1868) I. 187 Where the whirlings of the stream had left the marks of its eddies in the solid marble. 1894 Phil. Trans. CLXXXV. i. 279 The Whirling and Vibration of Shafts. |
2. Giddiness, vertigo.
| 1561 Hollybush Hom. Apoth. 42 The same driueth away..the whirling in the head. 1892 Meredith Poems, Empty Purse 107 A whirling seized thy head. |
3. Hurling, flinging.
| 1579 Rice Invect. Vices B iij, The whorlyng of the Pottes about the house, the Cardes into the fire. |
¶ Misused for
hurling vbl. n. 2 a.
| a 1721 Prior Ess. Opin. Wks. 1907 II. 201 Bodmin or Truro shal break more Bones at a Whirling in Cornwal than the ablest Surgeon in London shal be able to set. |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
whirling speed;
whirling disease, a disease of trout caused by the parasitic sporozoan
Myxosoma cerebralis, which affects the balance of the fish it attacks.
| 1961 J. I. Lengy et al. tr. A. V. Uspenskaya in G. P. Petrusheveski Parasites & Dis. Fish 47 One of the most dangerous of the known parasitic diseases is the so-called ‘whirling disease’. 1962 Spec. Sci. Rep. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service No. 427. 2/2 Whirling disease appeared in brook trout at the Benner Spring Fish Research Station..in 1956. 1982 Times 12 Feb. 4/5 Whirling disease..is a parasite which gets into the skull of trout fry, causing a fish to lose its balance so that it swims round and round until it eventually dies. |
| 1894 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. CLXXXV. 283 The whirling speed was taken to be at the commencement of whirl, that is to say, the lowest speed at which the shaft definitely whirled. |
▪ II. ˈwhirling, ppl. a. [f. as prec. + -ing2.] That whirls, in various senses of the verb; turning (rapidly) round, rotating, revolving, circling (swiftly); eddying; moving impetuously, etc.
| 1382 Wyclif 2 Peter ii. 17 Cloudis..driuun with whirlinge wijndis. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) II. 51 Woodnesse of..whirlynge water casteþ vp..grete hepes of grauel. c 1450 Mirk's Festial 138 What by þondyr and by layte,..by whyrlyng-wynde, by mystes. 1545 [see plat n.2 7]. 1572 J. Bossewell Armorie ii. 90 b, The blinde goddesse Fortune, with her doble visage, and whirlynge whele. 1581 Mulcaster Positions xix. (1888) 80 Children when they had their whirling gigges vnder the deuotion of their scourges. 1622 J. Taylor (Water P.) Farew. Tower-Bottles A 2 b, The whirling wheele of fickle Fate. 1630 Bp. Hall Occas. Medit. §13 That whirling Globe of earth. 1697 Dryden æneis x. 1264 A whirling Dart he sent. 1762 Cowper To Miss Macartney 34 Some Alpine mountain..Thus braves the whirling blast. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 1296 The whirling public so blindly follows fashionable caprice in the choice of a carriage. 1872 Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 273 The whirling and complicated machinery. 1885 T. P. Hughes Dict. Islam 118/1 [The Maulawīyah] are called by Europeans..the ‘dancing’, or ‘whirling’ darweshes. |
b. fig.| 1602 Shakes. Ham. i. v. 133 (Qo. 1) These are but wild and wherling [1623 hurling] words, my Lord. 1633 Bp. Hall Occas. Medit. §140 Those hurrying and whirling judgements of God. 1684 Creech Odes Hor. iii. xxx, Nor whirling Time, nor flight of Years. 1853 Dickens Bleak Ho. xxxvi, I cannot say what was in my whirling thoughts. 1855 Milman in Mem. (1900) 189 Quiet, though in the midst of the whirling city. |
c. Special collocations:
whirling blue,
whirling dun, names of artificial flies used in angling;
whirling-board = whirling-table (
a);
whirling chair, a chair contrived to rotate rapidly, used in the treatment of insane patients;
whirling-machine = whirling-table (
a);
whirling plant, the ‘telegraph-plant’,
Desmodium gyrans (see
telegraph n. 8);
whirling-table, (
a) a machine consisting essentially of a table contrived to revolve rapidly, used for experiments or demonstrations in dynamics or other branches of science; (
b) a horizontally rotating disk in a potter's lathe, carrying a mould which shapes the inside of a plate, cup, or other circular piece of ware, while the outside is shaped by a templet above it.
| 1747 Bowlker Art Angling 73 The little *Whirling Blue... This Fly is only to be Fish'd with..in warm Weather. |
| 1764 J. Ferguson Lect. ii. 19 Which weight..will draw the ball from the edge of the *whirling-board to its center. |
| 1799 Underwood Dis. Childhood (ed. 4) II. 50 Exciting vertigo by placing the patient in a *whirling chair. |
| 1676 Cotton Angler ii. vii. 61 About the twelfth of this Month [Apr.] comes in the Flie call'd the *whirling Dun. |
| 1843 Penny Cycl. XXVII. 326/1 *Whirling-machine is an apparatus..for the purpose of determining the resistance of the air. |
| 1866 Treas. Bot. 1232/1 *Whirling Plant, Desmodium gyrans. |
| 1764 J. Ferguson Lect. ii. 18 The *whirling-table is a machine contrived for shewing experiments of this nature. 1830 Kater & Lardner Mech. viii. 100 An apparatus called a whirling table..for the purpose of exhibiting illustrations of the laws of centrifugal force. 1840 Penny Cycl. XVIII. 473/1 The workman stands at a bench provided with a whirling-table.., which has its motion given by a horizontal pulley or jigger. 1879 Prescott Sp. Telephone 262 An attachment to the whirling-table for projecting sound-curves upon a screen. |
Hence
ˈwhirlingly adv., with whirling movement (also
fig.).
| 1812 W. Tennant Anster F. ii. lix, As they trip it whirlingly. 1902 S. E. White Blazed Trail viii, The forces of nature..so whirlingly contemptuous of puny human effort. |