means To spin or rotate quickly and lightly, usually in a graceful or playful way — a dancer, a baton, a strand of hair around a finger.

from A surprisingly young-looking word with murky roots — it surfaces in English around the 16th century, possibly a blend of 'twist' and 'whirl,' two older words it clearly keeps company with. Some link it to the dialectal 'tirl' (to twist or quiver), itself a cousin of 'thrill,' which once meant to pierce or whirl. The honest answer: its exact parentage is uncertain, but it sounds like exactly what it does, and that may be half the reason it stuck.