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Whorl definition

wôrl, hwôrl, wûrl, hwûrl
whorls
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A form that coils or spirals; a curl or swirl.

Spread the icing in peaks and whorls.

noun
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(botany) An arrangement of three or more leaves, petals, or other organs arising from a single node.
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(zoology) A single turn or volution of a spiral shell.
noun
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One of the circular ridges or convolutions of a fingerprint.
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(architecture) An ornamental device, as in stonework or weaving, consisting of stylized vine leaves and tendrils.
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A small flywheel on a spindle, as for regulating the speed of a spinning wheel.
noun
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Anything with a coiled or spiral appearance.
  • Any of the circular ridges that form the design of a fingerprint.
  • (bot.) A circular growth of leaves, petals, etc. about the same point on a stem.
  • (zool.) Any of the turns in a spiral shell.
noun
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A form that coils or spirals; a curl or swirl.
noun
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An area of hair growing in a radial manner.
noun
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A small pulley that regulates the speed of the bobbin of a spinning wheel.
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A small flywheel that regulates the speed of a hand-operated spindle.
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A turn of the cochlea or of the ethmoidal crest.
noun
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One of the circular ridges or convolutions of a fingerprint.
noun
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An arrangement of three or more appendages radiating in a circular or spiral arrangement from a point on a plant, as leaves around the node of a stem. The sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels of angiosperms form four separate whorls within a complete flower.
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A single turn of a spiral shell of a mollusk.
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noun
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(botany) A circle of three or more leaves, flowers, or other organs, about the same part or joint of a stem.
noun
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(zoology) A volution, or turn, of the spire of a univalve shell.
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(archaic) A flywheel, a weight attached to a spindle, compare 1460.
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(intransitive) To form a pattern of concentric circles.
verb
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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
whorl
Plural:
whorls

Origin of whorl

  • Middle English whorle alteration of whirle whirl from whirlen to whirl whirl

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Whorl Sentence Examples

  • As a rule, however, the number in a whorl is irregular.

  • In the staminal whorl especially it is common to find additional rows.

  • When there is more than one row or whorl in a flower, those on the outside are sometimes longest, as in many Rosaceae; at other times those in the interior are longest, as in Luhea.

  • Trophosome, polyps with a single whorl of capitate tentacles; gonosome, free medusae, with ten tacles branched, solid.

  • There is no satisfactory explanation of this break in the regular alternation of successive whorls; the outer whorl' of stamens arises in course of development before the inner, so that there is no question of subsequent displacement.

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