gurge

American  

[gurj] / gɜrdʒ /

noun

gurges plural

1. a whirlpool.

2. Also called whirlpool.  Heraldry. Also a charge covering the entire field of an escutcheon and having the form either of a spirallike scroll or of a number of concentric rings, the whole field having two tinctures.

---

verb (used without object)

gurged, gurging

1. to swirl like a whirlpool.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• gurges
  plural

Etymology

Origin of gurge

First recorded in 1515–25, gurge is from the Latin word gurges whirlpool

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gurge gurges

Vividly to her mind came the picture of the wildly rushing flood with its burden of tossing trees, and the man being swept straight into the gurge of it.

From The Texan A Story of the Cattle Country by Hendryx, James B. (James Beardsley)

At all gates the clangours gurge in, God's paludament lightens, see!

From New Poems by Thompson, Francis

I think the word contained must be related to Old High German swal, Old Norse svelgr, gurges, Eng. swell, though it is wanting in the Celtic.

From The River-Names of Europe by Ferguson, Robert

The antient family of Gorges bore a gurges, or whirlpool, an unique instance, I believe, of that bearing.

From The Curiosities of Heraldry by Lower, Mark Antony

Lo! the Blenheim Boanerges On a sudden re-emerges And, to calm the naval gurges, FISHER'S restoration urges.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, February 28, 1917 by Various