pinwheel

American  

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

Or pin wheel

noun

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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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

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

To make the pinwheel, Nicholson runs the balls of rainbow-colored dough through the pasta maker to make sheets and cuts the sheets into squares.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 13, 2022

To spin and step and reach as the piano notes pinwheel all around you.

From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day