gyre

plural gyres

1. literarypoeticA swirling vortex.
2. literarypoeticA circular or spiral motion; also, a circle described by a moving body; a revolution, a turn.

   Quick, and more quick he ſpins in giddy Gires, / Then falls, and in much Foam his Soul expires.

   1700, [John] Dryden, “Meleager and Atalanta, out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 112

   2 more examples

   What is art, / But life upon the larger scale, the higher, / When, graduating up in a spiral line / Of still expanding and ascending gyres, / It pushes toward the intense significance / Of all things, hungry for the Infinite? / Art's life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.

   1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Fourth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, pages 176–177

   Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, […]

   1920, William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”, in Michael Robartes and the Dancer, Churchtown, Dundrum [Dublin]: The Cuala Press, →OCLC, page 19

   Synonyms: circuit, whirl

3. archaicanatomySynonym of gyrus (“a fold or ridge on the cerebral cortex of the brain”).

   Synonyms: gyrus

4. geographyAn ocean current caused by wind which moves in a circular manner, especially one that is large-scale and observed in a major ocean.

   Most ships that tried to cross the Pacific in the past would get stuck in the gyres and never make it out.

present singular third person gyres · participle present gyring · participle past gyred · past gyred

1. intransitiveliterarypoeticTo spin around; to gyrate, to whirl.

   Jabberwocky. / 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wa[b]e; / All mimsy were the borogoves, / And the mome raths outgrabe.

   1871 December 27 (indicated as 1872), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Looking-Glass House”, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 21

   1 more example

   The host of heauenly beautyes moue, / Depainted in their proper stories, / As well the fixd as wandring glories, / Which from their proper orbes not goe, / Whether they gyre swift or slowe: […]

   1605, Michael Drayton, “[Songs from the ‘Shepherd’s Garland’.] From Eclogue ij.”, in Cyril Brett, editor, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, published 1907, →OCLC, pages 240–241, lines 4–8

   Synonyms: revolve, rotate

2. literarypoeticraretransitiveTo make (something) spin or whirl around; to spin, to whirl.