the.com/whirlpool
nature's drain, spinning oceans into hungry cones that swallowed whole legends before swallowing your bathwater
means A rapidly rotating mass of water, usually formed where opposing currents meet, that pulls nearby objects toward its spiraling center.
from A plain English compound, welded from "whirl" — to spin or turn rapidly, related to Old Norse "hvirfla" and a cousin of "whirligig" — and "pool," a body of still or eddying water from Old English "pol." So the word is exactly what it says on the tin: a pool that whirls. The "whirl" half carries that dizzy, onomatopoeic sound of motion, the kind of word that spins a little in the mouth before you've even finished saying it.
- named monster
- Charybdis terrorized Greek sailors as a living whirlpool
- tidal beast
- Norway's Saltstraumen spins at 25 mph daily
- coriolis myth
- toilet swirl direction is decided by the bowl
- physics
- forms when fluids meet at opposing velocities
- galactic scale
- a spiral galaxy is named the Whirlpool
maelstrom — massive tidal whirlpool off the coast of lofoten islands, norway, with currents up to 40 km/h
saltstraumen — world's strongest maelstrom in nordland, norway, creating whirlpools during tidal changes
corryvreckan — whirlpool between jura and scarba islands, scotland, with waves up to 30 feet high