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Whirl   /wərl/  /hwərl/   Listen
Whirl

noun
1.
Confused movement.  Synonym: commotion.  "A commotion of people fought for the exits"
2.
The shape of something rotating rapidly.  Synonyms: convolution, swirl, vortex.
3.
A usually brief attempt.  Synonyms: crack, fling, go, offer, pass.  "I gave it a whirl"
4.
The act of rotating rapidly.  Synonyms: spin, twirl, twist, twisting.  "It broke off after much twisting"



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"Whirl" Quotes from Famous Books



... so loudly as now. She remembered surprising Norvin Blake at play with these very children one day, and the half-abashed, half-defiant light in his eyes when he discovered her watching him. Thinking of him, she recalled just such another twilight hour as this when, in a whirl of shamed emotion, she had been compelled to face the fact of her love. A sudden trembling weakness seized her at the memory, and she saw again those cold gray walls, which never echoed to the gleeful crowing of babes or the thrilling ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... wait till the flurry of the win's gone by," said old O'Beirne, for his visitor pointed out into a shrieking whirl, shrilling higher and fiercer. "Sorra a minyit you'll lose, for you couldn't stir a step in that or see a stim. Sit you down a while. What was ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... the length of Bond Street, and out into the whirl of Piccadilly. Soon, almost too soon for Cornelia's jangled nerves, they had drawn up before the great door ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... three; one, two, three," chanted the music master. He dared not let her see his agitation. "What does it mean? How can it be? Good God, how can it be?" His brain was in a whirl; the possibilities came to ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... at home, arose on the natal soil and suddenly expanded beyond all calculation. After 1789, France resembles a hive in a state of excitement; in a few hours, in the brief interval of an August morning, each insect puts forth two huge wings, soars aloft and "all whirl together pell-mell;" many fall to the ground half cut to pieces and begin to crawl upward as before; others, with more strength or with better luck, ascend and glitter on the highways of the atmosphere.—Every great highway and every ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the Haymarket, and as they walked down the street Fenwick found himself in the midst of the evening whirl of the West End. The clubs were at their busiest; men passed them in dress-suits and overcoats like themselves, and the street was full of hansoms, whence the faces of well-dressed women, enveloped in soft ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fireworks. They were simply bewildering. Lulu, the staunch little friend who had gone to Cynthia's in the morning, speedily found her out, and was in a whirl of joy that ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... mixed, of late, very little with the English. My mother's introductions had procured me the entree of the best French houses; and to them, therefore, my evenings were usually devoted. Alas! that was a happy time, when my carriage used to await me at the door of the Rocher de Cancale, and then whirl me to a succession of visits, varying in their degree and nature as the whim prompted: now to the brilliant soirees of Madame De—, or to the appartemens au troisieme of some less celebrated daughter of dissipation and ecarte;—now to the literary conversaziones of the Duchesse de D—s, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... measures were slipped through Senate and Assembly without the members of either House fully realizing what the bills were, their purpose, or far-reaching effects. To be sure, a member of the Legislature should know what he is voting on, but when one considers the incidents of the whirl-wind close of the session of 1909, the injustice of holding a member accountable for inadvertently voting for a measure which he had intended ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... Aldhame and Tyningham are now united under the designation of Whitekirk. At Prestonkirk there is a well which bears the saint's name, whose water, as a Protestant writer notes, is excellent for making tea! An eddy in the Tyne is called St. Baldred's Whirl. A century ago Prestonkirk churchyard possessed an ancient statue of St. Baldred. The ruins of a chapel dedicated to the saint are still discernible on the ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... musicale, and an evening dance kept Violet Strange in a whirl for the remainder of the day. No brighter eye nor more contagious wit lent brilliance to these occasions, but with the passing of the midnight hour no one who had seen her in the blaze of electric lights would have ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth, — yea, thou with a storm for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright Than the eye of a man may ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... day, or was it night, As there they told their love again? The high-tide of the sun's delight, Or whirl of wind ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... he went over so easily," remarked the Lion. "It astonished me to see him whirl around so. Is ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... whirl of the two striking, staggering, cursing men, was unexpectedly dramatic. They had surged out into the open, but Conrad, little by little and step by step, or rather stagger by stagger, had given way before the mallet-like ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... sounded, and quick feet flew round the floor with more rapidity than before. The tedium of the quadrille was found to be too slow, and from three till six a succession of waltzes, reels, and country dances, kept the room in one whirl of confusion, and at last sent the performers home, not from a feeling of satiety at the amusement, but because, from very weariness, they were no longer ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... forth with fearful onslaught upon "Rule Britannia." When they were through you could have heard a pin fall. Not a soul risked a sound lest the players should mistake it as an invitation to renew their entertainment; so the real pipe band came on for another whirl and we were made ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... take a quarter of a century at least to manufacture a decent thick surface of conventionality, and its self-conscious respectable wing could no more escape its spirit than its fogs and winds. But evil excitement was tempered to irresponsible gaiety, a constant whirl of innocent pleasures. When the spirit passed the portals untempered, and drove women too highly-strung, too unhappy, or too easily bored, to the divorce courts, to drink, or to reckless adventure, they were summarily dropped. No woman, however guiltless, could ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... necessity for creation is strikingly proved by the prolific output of the Arts. Year after year, as we whirl through space on our mysterious destiny, undeterred by apparent futility, the primal instinct for the visualization of dreams steadily persists. Good or bad, useful or useless, it must be satisfied. It amounts to a law, like the attraction of the sexes. Discouraged in some directions, it will ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... country, but why so many? And, sadder still, minds had been sacrificed. The asylums, such as they were, were filled with those whose minds in the ghastly loneliness of the desert had been torn and turned and twisted by the incessant whirl and shirr and swish and force of the ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... cure Dinah of her melancholy; she threw herself into the whirl of fashion. She wished for success, and she achieved it; still, she did not make much way with women, and found it ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... wink, so the question of Drink, though you timidly shrink from it, harries you. Your wit's in a whirl, as you think, if some girl with a penchant for you, ups and marries you. And ties you for life to the thing called a Wife,—that figment, that fraud, that illusion, Where, what will you be? And you can't find a key to the epoch's chaotic confusion. It seems Local Option is sure of adoption, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... felt rather than thought in the whirl of action. One after another the leaders of the assailants fell, pierced through the throat while their ponderous axes were in the act of descending. By his side the Dutchman's retainers fought sturdily, while the crack of the pistols of Hugh, Joe Sedley, and the master of the house ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... step than heart, for he was in the mood by no means uncommon, when the spirit is prophesying evil unto itself. He was sensible of the feeling, and for shame would catch the javelin in the middle and whirl it about him defensively until it sung like a spinning-wheel; at times he stopped and, with his fingers in his mouth, whistled to a small bird as if it were a ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... now that Will Devitt had gone out West because Nancy McVeigh's bar no longer needed his services, and she was somewhat pessimistic in her remarks. A week went over, and they only saw Dr. Dodona as his big sorrel mare drew his cutter over the Monk Road in a whirl of snow. Then one day he passed, accompanied by James Piper, and Nancy could endure the ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... he, pointin' to a thing about the size of a flat-iron with a knittin'-needle stickin' out of it. I give a little think, an' I sez: "To tell you the gospel truth, Bud, I ain't never been on a sailboat in my life; but I'm game to play her one whirl if you'll just wait until I get ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... compelled to whirl aside because of threatening peril ahead. Dodging in and out between the khaki-colored canvas field hangars he sought desperately to throw Tom off his track; but no hound ever followed its quarry with more pertinacity than the Yankee ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, A zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bed-time came The white drift piled the window-frame, And, through the glass, the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... his heart contrite. Or take the inaugural vision of Ezekiel—the storm-wind out of the North, the vast cloud, the fire infolding itself, the brightness round about and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber; the rush and whirl of life that followed, wheels and wings and rings full of eyes; and over this the likeness of a firmament of the colour of the terrible ice and the sound of wings like the noise of many waters, as the Voice of the Almighty and above the firmament a ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... undulations. 'That will do,' he said to himself approvingly. 'That will do very well; that's little Miss Butterfly. Here she flits, flits, flits, flickers, sip, sip, sip, at her honeyed flowers; twirl away, whirl away, off in the sunshine—there you go, Miss Butterfly, eddying and circling with your painted mate. Flirt, flirt, flirt, coquetting and curvetting, in your pretty rhythmical aerial quadrille. Down again, down to the hare-bell on the hill side; sip at it, sip at it, sip at it, sweet little ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... Piper pipes in the centre, hidden from sight. And we become frantic, we dance. The March wind, seized with frenzy, Runs and reels, and sways with noisy branches. The sun and stars are drawn in the whirl ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... work waiting for her, and she took it up with her usual readiness; but it was hard to settle into the regular school routine after the exciting whirl of that gay fortnight. Cards had come from Floyd and Harold, but the absence of the latter when she left them was not even mentioned. This she could not understand, for she had expected an apology as the very least ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... against it like a parti-colored wave, and then receding, surged again, but always the narrow webbing held them back. I found the blue and gold. It was almost without motion—it did not shift and whirl with the rest. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote

... Super-Sargasso Sea, I think this is one of our best expressions upon external origins. That large blocks of ice could form in the moisture of this earth's atmosphere is about as likely as that blocks of stone could form in a dust whirl. Of course, if ice or water comes to this earth from external sources, we think of at least minute organisms in it, and on, with our data, to frogs, fishes; on to anything that's thinkable, coming from external sources. It's of great importance to us to accept that large ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... say that. I am happier than they are, now, Hugh,—now that you are better,—with all their means of happiness. They know nothing of our quiet enjoyments, they must live in a whirl or they would think they are not living at all, and I do not believe that all New York can give them the real pleasure that I have in such a day as this. They would see almost nothing in all this beauty that my eyes 'drink in,' as Cowper says; ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... was a better field for him in New York than here—old Mr. Crocker had always told him this. Then, too, there was something of fascination after all, in going out alone like a knight-errant to conquer the world. And in that great Northern city, too, with its rush and whirl and all that it held for him of mystery! How many times had Mr. Crocker talked to him by the hour of its delights. And Ellicott's chair! Yes, he could get rid of that. And Sue? Sue would wait—she had promised him she would; ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... should like to scream!" she announced, as their last whirl brought them up against the wall. "Isn't vacation just lovely? Katy, you don't look ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge

... row with our backs to the fire, and our brains began to whirl, but never was there such a sweet intoxication. However, the punch was not finished and we were getting very hot. I took off my coat, and they were obliged to unlace their dresses, the bodices of which were lined with fur. Guessing at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Atlantic our population with ceaseless tide has poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, with eddying whirl has passed to the coast of the Pacific, from the West and the East the tides are rushing towards each other—and the mind is carried to the day when all the cultivable and will be inhabited, and the American people will sign for more wildernesses ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... Emperor with the sudden change of his court was too powerful. It bore the look of desperation; though for what purpose, was still a mystery to the million. I heard many a whisper among the diplomatic circle, that this whirl of life, this hot and fierce dissipation, was, in all Russian reigns, the sure precursor of a catastrophe; though none could yet venture to predict its nature. It was like the furious and frenzied indulgence of a crew in a condemned ship, breaking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... wait for my own imagination, this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter. But I am at length convinced that my rambling head can produce nothing of that sort; so I must e'en be content with telling you the old story, that I love you heartily. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... importunities had succeeded, he thought. At all events, his opportunity had come; for the telegram informed him of his appointment to the Punjab Commission. He sat for a moment with his thoughts in a whirl. He could hardly believe the good news. He had longed so desperately for this one chance that it had seemed to him of late impossible that he should ever obtain it. Yet here it had come to him, and upon that his neighbour jogged him ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... enclosed space, led by the high priest. On arriving opposite the seat of their leader, they bowed thrice to the ground, with their arms crossed upon the breast, and on passing close to it, they stepped by, with a stride and a whirl, and then resumed their march. After the third performance of these absurdities, the high priest sat down, and the music, which had hitherto continued playing the march, presently struck into an air resembling a sauteuse, accompanied by the chanting of several voices. The ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... right; for the worst of it was that in this bustle and whirl of facts, rumours and gossip the Reds could approach troubled Uliassutai and take everyone with their bare hands. We should very willingly have left this town of uncertainties but we had no place to go. In the north were the hostile Partisans and Red troops; to the south we had already ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... turned into a group of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the grasses. Sabots, short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad whirl ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... was white, her lips set, her eyes blazing, but Fagin, assured of her helplessness, laughed, and stepped forward. From what hidden concealment it came I know not, but there was the flash of a polished barrel, a sharp report, the whirl of smoke, and the brute went backward over a chair, crashing to the floor, with hands flung high over his head. I was aware of the swift rush of a body past me, of steps going up the stairs, and then, with a yell, my men poured out from ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... in England.—Translator's Note.) or screw, shall be placed in a tin box; the screws of paper shall be wedged in so as to avoid collisions during the rotation; lastly, the box shall be tied to a cord and I will whirl the whole thing round like a sling. With this contrivance, it will be quite easy to obtain any rate of speed that I wish, any variety of inverse movements that I consider likely to make my captives ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... entirely! There was a breaking of floodgates, a whirl of new memories and new griefs rushing into his mind. In far Lithuania they had celebrated Christmas; and it came to him as if it had been yesterday—himself a little child, with his lost brother ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he instinctively lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted encouragingly. "Go along with you, I say!" and the parson, also carried away by the whirl of the moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... declare: the ball-room, with its flashing lights, intoxicating perfumes, starry hosts of gleaming, eyes, refulgent robes, mirrors duplicating countless splendors and ceaseless whirl of vanity, may add a tenfold lustre to the charm of beauty, and I know it does; the opera-box embellishments of blazing gas, and glittering gems and flowers, fresh from native beds of millinery, all-odorous with divinest scents of Lubin, harmoniously dulcified, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... so far as I can remember, the exact substance of what Manderson said to me that night. I went to my room, changed into day clothes, and hastily threw a few necessaries into a kit-bag. My mind was in a whirl, not so much at the nature of the business as at the suddenness of it. I think I remember telling you the last time we met"—he turned to Trent—"that Manderson had rather a fondness for doing things in a story-book style. Other things being equal, he delighted in a bit of mystification ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... at that moment. She entered with that slight whirl which she generally affected, and which she considered truly Parisian. Somehow, in some fashion, Sibyl felt herself swept out of the room. She stood for a moment in the passage. There was a long glass at the further end, and it reflected a pink-robed ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... the first, our lives seemed to me a whirl of gaiety, and although I went to no big balls, not having been presented, there were a good many young girls' dances and garden-parties and such things open to me, all of which ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... pulling his hand away from the detaining grasp. "Some time, perhaps, but not now! I've too much else on hand! I must beat it now! Man alive! Do you know what time it is? See you soon again!" Tennelly was off in a whirl ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... his companion. Lumbe rejoined them at the footbridge which led across the meadows into the Heredith estate, and they proceeded on their way in silence. Sergeant Lumbe's brain—such as it was—was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently; Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... were still in a wild whirl, but the heat of his mad rage had passed and left him in a cold fury. He instantly comprehended that Blake had swung over the edge and was descending the rope down the almost sheer face of the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... behind spent the remainder of the evening on the front porch, watching the deep river, the hoary mountains, the starry sky, and listening to the hum of insects, the whirl of waters and the singing of the summer breeze through the pines that clothed the precipice, and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... one of nature's wildest fantasies, From which she flies in terror so profound, And with such whirl of torment in her breast, That mighty earthquakes yearn where'er she treads; While War makes red its terrible right hand, And Famine stalks abroad all ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... reckon for all the deeds thou hast done in the body? Nay, are not the very thoughts of it altogether displeasing to thee? And if God's will should be done on earth as it is in heaven, must it not be thy ruin? There is never a rebel in heaven against God, and if he should so deal on earth, must it not whirl thee down to hell? And so of the rest of the petitions. Ah! How sadly would even those men look, and with what terror would they walk up and down the world, if they did but know the lying and blaspheming that proceedeth out of their mouth, even in their most pretended sanctity? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... away, and in their wake followed an awkward silence. The logs were hissing in the fire. I could hear the clock in the hall outside, and the beating of the vines against the window panes. It was no sound, certainly, that made me whirl around to look behind me,—some instinct—that was all. There was Brutus, not two feet from my back, with my father's cloak over his right arm, and my father's sword ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... committed, and don't intend to commit, and, anyway, before they can be punished must be caught red-handed. You've got your problems sure enough, and—and these are some of the simplest of mine. Oh, dear—it almost makes my head whirl when I think of them. But I must do so, because," her smile died out, and the man watched the sudden determined setting of her lips, "I'm against you as long as you are—against him. Good-bye. I must ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... guide him back, but he turned only to whirl again, determinedly. Somewhere in the deep gloom ahead he had a destination and no mere girl was to deter him from reaching it as soon as possible. It was plain to his horse-mind that his rider did not know what she wanted, ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... a pillow." Then, noting the inquiry thus suggested, he went on to say: "What a man most needs is that he should find in his wife a pillow whereon to rest his heart. He longs to find a moment's rest from the outer whirl of life, to win a ready listener that sympathizes where others wound." And she whose eyes are flattering mirrors, whose lips console and soothe, will find that she has secured a hold upon the heart of her husband, that the embodiment of all the virtues ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... modish grace, Delirium of the Carmagnole, Fair France has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror cold. The whirl so dizzies, she breathes short; The serpent spirals seem to fold Laocoon-like about her limbs. Tarantula-bitten victims so Whirl madly. Shrinks her head and swims; This is not glory's ardent glow, But fever's hectic, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... the incident in the whirl of happenings that followed, but the Fijian had a longer memory. Late that afternoon he was holding the wheel with Soma, the big Kanaka who had jerked the knife at me, and as I stopped to peer at the binnacle ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... drives us from the green, Nor leaves a flower to decorate the scene; The winds arise—with sweep impetuous blow, And whirl around the flakes of fleecy snow; Yet shall imagination fondly rise And gather fair ideas as she flies: The images that blooming spring pourtrays, The sweets that bask in summer's sultry rays, The rich and varied fruits of autumn's reign Shall ope their treasures, in a bounteous train; ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... great occasion was reached somewhat after midnight when the quadrille d'honneur was announced. The great King sat upon a raised dais, or throne, the better to view the gorgeous pageant. A mighty fanfare of trumpets, which seemed to whirl the feelings for a moment into the forces beyond mortality, invited to the initial movements of the quadrille. It was as though an army with banners was about to launch its squadrons upon the foe in some majestic Friedland or Gettysburg. As the sound died away, there ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... pounds, is then the same as a permanent steel horseshoe magnet, which would hardly be possible at all. One who has watched the installation of a dynamo, knowing that there is nowhere near any ordinary source of electricity, and has seen its armature begin to whirl and hum, and then in a few moments the violet sparklings of the brushes and the evident presence of a powerful current of electricity, is almost justified in the common opinion that the genius of man has devised a machine to create something ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... rural plenty which had been the joy of her first years. Just as in her childhood she had never been thwarted in the satisfaction of her playful desires, so now, at fourteen, she was still obeyed when she rushed into the whirl of fashion. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... "Whirl fiery circles, and the moon is full: Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow, And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... are lit up by the flames of leaping fires lit on the sand. Petticoated porters thrust metal numbers at us so that we may be able to recognise them again and reclaim our luggage safely. We make our way to the steamer and mount to the first-class deck and look down on the whirl of turbans and red fezes (also called tarbooshes) below. The perpetual chatter, the long low cries, the beating shout of men staggering under heavy loads make up a resounding din. Clamped boxes, camp-chairs, enamel basins, dispatch-boxes, helmet-cases ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... their hands pursued their never-ending toil, as of custom. The left hand bore the distaff enwrapped in soft wool, the right hand lightly withdrawing the threads with upturned fingers did shape them, then twisting them with the prone thumb it turned the balanced spindle with well-polished whirl. And then with a pluck of their tooth the work was always made even, and the bitten wool-shreds adhered to their dried lips, which shreds at first had stood out from the fine thread. And in front of ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... Women Editors labor in their duty of suggesting new ideas for entertaining, and I hold a sincere appreciation for the good they perform in elevating the women of our country to a higher plain of civilization. When the woman is done with the school room and finds herself in the social whirl it is then she begins to see that she has another and very important course of learning to acquire and forthwith she submits herself to the tutorage of the editor of the woman's page. No school teacher of the world has such a large class to instruct as this ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce

... person spurs his cayouse away; at the same time he's laughin' at Boggs, deemin' his terrors that a-way as reedic'lous. As he does, a streak of white fire comes down, straight as a blazin' arrer, an' with it sech a whirl of thunder, which I thought the earth had split! An' it shorely runs the devil's ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger, or even an eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done for countless years—as though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even at ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... magnet, then, we only need a current of electricity flowing round and round in a whirl. A vortex or whirlpool of electricity is in fact a magnet; and vice versa. And these whirls have the power of directing and attracting other previously existing whirls according to certain laws, called the laws of magnetism. And, moreover, they have the power of exciting fresh ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... curs on my plains, Rotted the flesh that was left them, poisoned the blood in their veins; Burst with my winter upon them, searing forever their sight, Lashed them with fungus-white faces, whimpering wild in the night; Staggering blind through the storm-whirl, stumbling mad through the snow, Frozen stiff in the ice pack, brittle and bent like a bow; Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white; ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... whirl of our incessant activity, it has often been difficult for me, as the reader has probably observed, to round off my narratives, and to give those final details which the curious might expect. Each case has been the prelude to another, and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... creation of the French shops. She was animated, audacious, Gallic in accent and postures—she was vividly alive with a magnetism that meant much more than beauty; but she over-exerted her voice, and her song was nothing to excite applause. At last she was off, in a whirl of skirts, a generous display of hosiery, and a great bobbing of the aigrette pompon that towered above her like an Indian head-dress. Only a moment later she was on again, this time in a daring costume of solid black, against and through which her ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... return to Jurgen: and his flare of passion died, and the fever and storm and the impetuous whirl of things was ended, and the man was very weary. And in the silence he heard the piping cry of a bird that seemed to seek for what it ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... them, singing a little tinkling song all its own. But the girl neither saw nor heard aught of her surroundings. She was back in the heat and whirl of a crowded New York thoroughfare, back in the fierce grip of this man's arms, hearing his quiet voice above her head, bidding her not ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... that elemental Whirl Where Arc on Arc the traind Planets swirl - The Astronomic Marvels have no charm For him who walks the Gloaming ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin

... it. Her new motor's here, too, down from London. The chauffeur seems a mighty nice man, a sight nicer than Hammond." Hammond had been Madame von Marwitz's recent coachman. Mrs. Talcott talked on mildly while she fed Karen who, in the whirl of trivial thoughts, turning and turning like midges over a deep pool, questioned herself, with a vague wonder that she was too tired to follow: "Did Tante say anything to ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... voting. Had I been superstitious my arrival in San Francisco on Friday, May 12, might have boded ill for the success of my mission, but I was no sooner ashore than my friend Alfred Cridge took me in charge, and the first few days were a whirl ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... from the mass, hail its partner by name, and glide out to join him or her in the procession. Then, when the last shadows had found their mates and every one was partnered, the lights were turned up in a blaze, the orchestra crashed out a whirl of nondescript dance music, and people just let themselves go. It was Pandemonium. Afterwards every one strutted about for half an hour or so, showing themselves off, and then the legitimate programme of dances began. There ...
— When William Came • Saki

... so proud of you last night, dear girl, While man with man was striving for your smile. You never lost your head, nor once dropped down From your high place As queen in that gay whirl. ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the snowflakes Whirl in eddies round the lodges,... "There," they cry, "comes Pau-Puk-Keewis; He is dancing thro' the village, He is gathering ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... in a whirl, I alighted at Putnam's hotel, where my kind friend, Mr. W. Duncan, had prepared rooms for our party; nor did his zeal in our behalf stop here, for he claimed the privilege of being the first to offer ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... lightly, pranced out of the gate. She turned swiftly toward the grade that led out to the bench and to Eagle Butte. They had almost reached the foot of the grade, when some impulse caused Carolyn June to whirl the filly about and gallop back past the barn and down the lane toward ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... later, Skavinski was seen on the deck of a steamer, which was going from Aspinwall to New York. The poor man had lost his place. There opened before him new roads of wandering; the wind had torn that leaf away again to whirl it over lands and seas, to sport with it till satisfied. The old man had failed greatly during those few days, and was bent over; only his eyes were gleaming. On his new road of life he held at his breast his book, which from time to time ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... WHIRL, OR ROPE-WINCH. Small hooks fastened into cylindrical pieces of wood which communicate by a leather strap with a spoke-wheel, whereby three of them are set in motion at once. Used for spinning yarn for ropes. Now more commonly made ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... terror-inspiring, unearthly shriek was heard ringing through the quiet wood. Directly afterwards the feet of one of the scouts, as we supposed, were heard rushing through the wood. It was one of our companions. The whirl of a dozen tomahawks flying after him showed how closely he was pursued, as he broke into the encampment, crying out, "The enemy are upon us, the enemy are upon us!" What made the suspense more trying was, that not a foe could be seen. We had no doubt that they were there ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... Palace of the Sun and Moon was many, many hundreds of thousands of miles distant into the East. If they traveled on foot they might never reach the place, they would die of old age on the road. But Jokwa had recourse to magic. She gave her two ambassadors wonderful chariots which could whirl through the air by magic power a thousand miles per minute. They set out in good spirits, riding above the clouds, and after many days they reached the country where the Sun and the Moon ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... dissolving of governments, to need any more to be said of it; and there wants not much argument to prove, that where the society is dissolved, the government cannot remain; that being as impossible, as for the frame of an house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and dissipated by a whirl-wind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake. Sec. 212. Besides this over-turning from without, governments are dissolved from within, First, When the legislative is altered. Civil society being a state of peace, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... disreputable fellows with "whirl-boards" at "ten cents a whirl;" with "ring-boards" at "five cents a pitch," and ten cents made when you lodged the rings on the points. There was also a blind-fold professor of phrenology, who examined heads ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... With a whirl of thought oppressed I sank from reverie to rest, A horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead! Jove, armed with terrors, burst the skies, And thunder roars, and lightning flies! Amazed, confused, its fate ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... had returned to the Denvers' house in a whirl of passionate protest and indignation. She could not understand why she had been punished. The sin she had committed did not seem to be any sin at all to her. What did it matter how she dressed or when she went out? The fact that she had broken a very ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... snorted. "That's my idea of hell. I'll tell you about me, Old Dear—I'm going to have one more whirl if I have to walk back to Prouty, and you might as ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... still for Miss Cadwallader; and her answer, "No — take it away!" — was given with startling decision. The man had known his young mistress before to speak with lips that were supreme in their expression. He only obeyed, without even wondering. Elizabeth in a whirl of feeling that like the smoke of the volcano hid everything but itself, went and stood in the window; present to nothing but herself; seeing neither the street without nor the house within. Wrapped in that smoke, she did not know ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... differently. Like the sand of the desert which is blown over the meadows and turns all the fresh verdure to a hideous brown-like a storm that transforms the blue mirror of the sea into a crisped chaos of black whirl pools and foaming ferment, this man's imperious audacity has cruelly troubled my peace of heart. Four times his eyes pursued me in the processions; yesterday I still did not recognize my danger, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... retinue of fashionable New Orleans out for its afternoon airing. Past this equipage; past that one; past half a dozen; a dozen; a score! Their inmates sit chatting in every sort of mood over the day's sensation, when—what is this? A rush from behind, a whirl of white dust, and—"As I live, there she goes now, on her regular drive! What scandalous speed! and—see here! they are after her!" Past fifty gigs and coaches; past a hundred; around this long bend in the road; around that one. Good-bye, pursuers! ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... Mamma has yielded at last; not her consent to our union, but her consent to receive you as before; and has promised to forget the past. Silly woman, how could she ever think of you as anything but the lover of your Matilda? I am in a whirl of delicious joy and passionate excitement. I have been awake all this long night, thinking of thee, my Algernon, and longing for the blissful hour ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and, as we started our circuit, the vast tower suddenly swayed aside, and then, tumbling in upon itself, it went down in a whirl of smoke and ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... with all his manly nobility of soul. But theorizing does not give much hold on a subject, the mind being taken up with its own clever elucidations. For the past six months, after a year's travel in Europe, her mother had led her on in a whirl of what she called happiness. Ruth had soon gauged the worth of this surface-life, and now that a lull had come, she realized that what she needed was some interest outside of herself,—an interest which the duties of a mere ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... "splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. She was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life of a social favorite at a large State University, that breathless whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... whatever she liked with it, and to build itself up under her tiny fingers as if it knew exactly what shape it was to take. They were all greatly delighted with the wonderful things she made; but when she showed them how to dance as the snowflakes do, first in a brisk whirl, and then softly and lightly, they could think of nothing else but Snegorotchka. She was the little fairy queen of the children, the delight of the older people, and the very breath of life to ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... what bitter longings! As I watched it dwindle away again into the blackness of space, I thought of the fortunate, selfish, stupid and cruel beings who lived on it, and hated them. They had banished me, an innocent man, to whirl forever and ever around the sun, in my ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl

... law, the sooth to sayn, And likerous* folk, after that they be dead, *lecherous Shall whirl about the world always in pain, Till many a world be passed, *out of dread;* *without doubt* And then, forgiven all their wicked deed, They shalle come unto that blissful place, To which to come ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... Kali bit his lips in order not to burst out laughing. In the meantime adjurations were repeated, more and more horrible, and the wheel kept spinning so quickly that the eyes could not keep pace with its whirl. This continued until the old negro entirely lost ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... cross-eyed, | |blistered-footed gal we'd er been dar dancin' yit. | |But she an Bugabear spill de beans. She come up ter | |me an' say, 'Mister Frogeye, kin you ball de Jack?' | |I tells her she don't see no chains on me, do she? | |An' we whirl right in. Hoccome I knowed she promise | |dat dance ter Bugabear? We ain't ball de Jack twice | |'roun' fo' heah he come wid er beer bottle shoutin' | |dat I done tuk his gal erway. I'se 'bleeged ter | ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... negligence of money that Crum had such engaging polish. The ballet was on its last legs and night, and the traffic of the Promenade was suffering for the moment. Men and women were crowded in three rows against the barrier. The whirl and dazzle on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco fumes and women's scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which belongs to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism. He looked admiringly in a young woman's face, saw she was not young, and quickly looked away. Shades ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... stars, of which he admired the immense size and admirable lustre; that the souls once out of the body rise into the air, and are enclosed in a kind of globe, or inflamed vortex, whence having escaped, some rise on high with incredible rapidity, while others whirl about the air, and are thrown in divers directions, sometimes up and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... have been undone already. But Dennis, like another Lockhard, chose "to make sicker." The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to fight to come down and do so,—stating, that they were ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... device for the amusement of children is a whirl on an ice merry-go-round. It is made by placing a vertical shaft or stake, provided with a couple of old cart-wheels, in a hole in the ice. One wheel acts as a turning base and prevents the shaft from sinking into the pond, and the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... exploring a deep cabinet with the aid of a flashlight when a strange clicking sound made them whirl simultaneously. In a corner of the room a deeper blot of shadow caught their eyes. Jack snapped on the flash. In the small circle of light a long, cadaverous face appeared. Thin lips were drawn back over wide-spaced yellow teeth. Black eyes ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West

... suspects betook themselves to other lands or made judicious use of their money-bags among the Spanish officials; the better classes of the population floundered hopelessly, leaderless, in the confused whirl of opinions and passions; while the voiceless millions for whom he had spoken moved on in dumb, uncomprehending silence. He had lived in that higher dreamland of the future, ahead of his countrymen, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... snow swooped down on me heavily, with a whirl and rush of wind from the sea, and I tried to hurry yet more from the chill. Then I was sure that I heard voices calling after me, and I ran, not rightly knowing where to go, but judging that the coastline would lead me to some fishers' ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... in the city. Their formidable cudgels, studded with nails, whirl around like monstrances of steel. One can hear the crash of things being broken in the houses. Intervals of silence follow, and then the loud cries burst forth again. From one end of the streets to the other there is a continuous ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert



Words linked to "Whirl" :   course, go around, twiddle, reel, attempt, effort, rotation, feed, give it a whirl, whirlpool, move, gyrate, motion, flow, endeavor, revolve, movement, whirl around, logrolling, birling, round shape, go, run, twist, try, rotate, rotary motion, circumvolve, pirouette, endeavour, whirling



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