twirl
/twəːl
/verb [no object]
1Spin quickly and lightly round, especially repeatedly: she twirled in delight to show off her new dress...
- Obviously a boy who appreciates a big stage when he sees one, Jack danced and twirled and spun with abandon, much to the delight of the photographers.
- From time to time, Russian dancers clad in national costume would pop up to dance between the tables, somehow reminiscent of a doll twirling round and round inside a music box.
- She looked absolutely radiant with joy in her period dress, spinning and twirling on the floor.
Synonyms
spin (round), pirouette, whirl, turn (round), wheel, gyrate, pivot, swivel;
twist, revolve, rotate;
Scottish birl
1.1 [with object] Cause to rotate: she twirled her fork in the pasta...
- ‘I am,’ said Jacqueline, twirling her fork in her fingers, but not actually touching the food.
- She gave me a smile as I picked up my fork and started twirling it.
- Corrina picked up her fork and twirled it around in her salad, never once raising the food to her mouth.
Synonyms
wind, twist, coil, curl, wrap
noun
1An act of spinning: Kate did a twirl in front of the mirror...
- The more you practice, the more complicated moves you'll be able to do, like turns and twirls.
- I kept on skating ahead of him, gathering more and more momentum and doing a complex combination of twirls, spins, and turns.
- We exited the atmosphere perfectly with a few bumps and twirls.
Synonyms
pirouette, spin, whirl, turn;
twist, rotation, revolution, gyration;
Scottish birl
1.1A spiralling or swirling shape, especially a flourish made with a pen: on the lid was a name written in old-fashioned twirls...
- Her name in an exquisite, flowing script glistened back at her, the letters furling and flourishing themselves in elegant swirls and twirls.
- A telltale sign of both species are the intricate spirals and twirls of their spawn on the base of individual blades of eel-grass, and these will often lead you to the perpetrator.
- His waxed moustache had turned into perfect twirls at their ends.
Derivatives
twirler
- He estimated a crowd of more than 1000 people who were stunned at the drummers, fire twirlers, fashion parades, dancers, puppet shows, a DJ, street performers and buskers.
- Spirits were high, the alcohol was free or subsidized, there were fire twirlers, drummers and men on stilts moving around the Victorian Arts Centre forecourt and I was feeling on top of the world.
- Talent night at the local elementary school tends to conjure up images of kazoo players, off-key warblers and budding baton twirlers, all with big dreams and stars in their eyes.
twirly
- But I suppose it was too much to expect for him to have a black, twirly moustache and for her to cackle mysteriously from beneath an impenetrable black shroud.
- It's a drinking song, It's a polka, it's girls in big twirly dresses and they're giving it everything they've got.
- In 2000 they installed a couple of tall twirly staircases and a giant spider, sculpted out of steel by Louise Bourgeois.
Origin
Late 16th century: probably an alteration (by association with whirl) of tirl, a variant of archaic trill 'twiddle, spin'.
Rhymes
- non-answered
- non-answering
- nonapeptide
- nonapology
- nonapology apology
- non-apparent
- non-appearance
- non-appearer
- non-arcing
- non-Aristotelian
- non-aromatic
- nonart
- non-articulated
- nonary
- non-Aryan
- non-assertive
- non-associated
- non-association order
- non-associative
- non assumpsit
- non-atomic
- non-attached
- non-attachment
- non-attendance
- non-attender