pinwheel

American  

[pin-hweel, -weel] / ˈpɪnˌʰwil, -ˌwil /

Or pin wheel

noun

• pinwheels
  plural

1. a child's toy consisting of a wheel or leaflike curls of paper or plastic loosely attached by a pin to a stick, designed to revolve when blown by or as by the wind.

2. Also called catherine wheel. a kind of firework supported on a pin which, when ignited, revolves rapidly and gives a dazzling display of light.

3. a wheel having pins at right angles to its rim for engaging the teeth of a gear.

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verb (used without object)

1. to revolve rapidly like a pinwheel.

   Images of the past pinwheeled through his mind.

pinwheel British  

/ ˈpɪnˌwiːl /

noun

1. another name for Catherine wheel

2. a cogwheel whose teeth are formed by small pins projecting either axially or radially from the rim of the wheel

3. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): windmill, whirligig. a toy consisting of plastic or paper vanes attached to a stick in such a manner that they revolve like the sails of a windmill

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pinwheels
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pinwheel

First recorded in 1695–1705; pin + wheel

Explanation

A pinwheel is a spinning toy that looks like a flower on a stick. Blow on it or run through the garden with one and watch it spin. Some things, like peppermints, have a pinwheel pattern. A pinwheel is a stick with twisted paper or plastic pieces that turn as they catch the wind. The original pinwheel, first called a whirligig, was invented in the nineteenth century by a woman who imagined children running while holding them in the air, which is exactly how pinwheels are usually played with. Before the toy, a pinwheel was a gear in a train's mechanism, and also a spinning firework also called a Catherine wheel.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pinwheel pinwheels

For the first time our data allowed us to analyze the likely axis of a possible future burst from our pinwheel Wolf-Rayets.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 18, 2023

The image is all-too familiar: the pinwheel form of a hurricane on a radar map, spiraling across the Caribbean.

From New York Times ● Mar. 5, 2023

To watch them all go at it at once feels a bit like sitting inside of a pinwheel in a windstorm, bits of multicolored plastic flipping and whirring erratically across one’s field of vision.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2022

At the studio, Nicholson is making a rainbow pinwheel of tortellini.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 13, 2022

Everyone stared at her—except for Leo, who had constructed a pinwheel out of aluminum foil taco wrappers and was sticking it into passing wind spirits.

From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan

The company had discontinued its Sausage Wrap Rolls in 2021, replacing them with sausage pinwheels, and people were furious.

From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026

The ground floor features the father’s cooking space, complete with a glowing fireplace and a bevy of pinwheels.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2023

More recently, we've recovered spectacular new data on the pinwheels from observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the likes of which Wolf and Rayet could hardly have imagined 150 years ago.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 18, 2023

Landscapes in villages and cities are transformed by remembrance, from a waist-high structure in Rajannapet, India, to spinning pinwheels fixed along a walkway in São Paulo, Brazil.

From New York Times ● Aug. 9, 2022

He had swirly brown hair that made Josie think of pinwheels, and rosy red cheeks that made Josie think of apples.

From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix