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maelstrom|ˈmeɪlstrəm|
Also 7 [malestrand,] male stream, 8 malestrom, 9 maelström, and in Ger. form mahlstrom.
[a. early mod.Du. maelstrom (now maalstroom), whirlpool, f. malen to grind, also to whirl round + stroom stream.
The use of maelstrom as a proper name (also in Fr.) seems to come from Du. maps, e.g. that in Mercator's Atlas (1595). Dutch philologists are of opinion that the word is native. It is true that it is found in all the mod. Scandinavian langs. as a common noun, but it is purely literary, and Danish scholars regard it as adopted from Du. or LG. The earliest known instance of Da. malstrøm (formerly also written malestrøm) occurs in 1673 in Debes Færoa reserata, the author of which was a pastor in the Færöe Islands. Cf. Norw. dial. malstraum (admitted by Aasen to be ‘little used’, which prob. means that he had never heard it in actual popular use), Sw. malström, Færoic mal(u)streymur (Hammershaimb Færøsk Anthologi, Glossary; the vb. mala in Færoic means ‘to grind’, ‘to whirl round’).
The form Malestrand in quot. c 1560 can only be a blunder; probably Jenkinson hearing the name Malestrøm confused it with the name of Malestrand (? meaning ‘pebbly shore’), now Marstrand, in South Sweden.]
A famous whirlpool in the Arctic Ocean on the west coast of Norway, formerly supposed to suck in and destroy all vessels within a long radius. Also transf. a great whirlpool.
[c1560A. Jenkinson in Hakluyt's Voy. (1589) 334 There is between the said Rost Islands, and Lofoote, a whirle poole, called Malestrand, which..maketh such a terrible noise, that it shaketh the rings in the doores of the inhabitants houses of the said Islands, ten miles of.] 1682R. Burton Wond. Curios. (1684) 229 Between the coast of Cathness and Orkney is a dreadful Frith or Gulf, in the North end of which, by reason of the meeting of 9 contrary Tides or Currents, is a Male Stream or great Whirlpool. 1701C. Wolley Jrnl. New York (1860) 47 A dangerous Current,..as dangerous and as unaccountable as the Norway Whirl-Pool or Mael⁓strom. 1755tr. Pontoppidan's Nat. Hist. Norway i. 77 There is another kind of current..in the sea of Norway,..namely the Malestrom, or Moskoestrom [orig. 1752 den vidtbkiendte Male-strøm eller Moske-strøm],..near the island Moskoe. a1844Poe (title) A descent into the Maelström. 1856W. E. Aytoun Bothwell (1857) 56 And if a ship should chance to pass within the maelstrom's sweep. 1860M. E. Braddon Trail Serpent i. i, Every gutter in every one of these streets was a little Niagara, with a maelstrom at the corner.
b. fig.
1831Carlyle Sart. Res. i. iv. (1858) 19 Some single billow in that vast World-Mahlstrom of Humour. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. iv. 69 An accumulated mass, in one wild maelstrom of affrighted men, struggling in frantic eddies. 1883Harper's Mag. July 956/1 In the wild and glittering maelstrom of luxury and extravagance. |