whorl
a circular arrangement of like parts, as leaves or flowers, around a point on an axis; verticil.
one of the turns or volutions of a spiral shell.
anything shaped like a coil.
one of the central ridges of a fingerprint, forming at least one complete circle.
Textiles. a flywheel or pulley, as for a spindle.
Origin of whorl
1Words Nearby whorl
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use whorl in a sentence
The team assessed DNA from their volunteers to find the genetic basis of these patterns, looking for a specific balance of genes that shift the chances of having an arch versus a loop versus a whorl.
The genes behind your fingerprints just got weirder | Lauren J. Young | January 10, 2022 | Popular-ScienceThe genetic influence on arch, loop, and whorl distinction is coming in at that earlier stage of building that field where the fingerprint will form.
The genes behind your fingerprints just got weirder | Lauren J. Young | January 10, 2022 | Popular-ScienceThe goal here is not to remove any knife marks—there should be none left after the previous step—but to eliminate the whorls and roughness left behind by the grit before.
Get your scratched wooden cutting board looking bright and new | Jean Levasseur | January 7, 2022 | Popular-ScienceAstronomers have the capability to directly detect these whorls today, if the pattern is prominent enough, but have yet to find any.
A key part of the Big Bang remains troublingly elusive | Charlie Wood | October 7, 2021 | Popular-ScienceThe artist achieves a similar effect without painting in “Round and Round,” in which Easter-egg hues underlie an oval inscribed with fingerprint-like whorls.
In the galleries: Tracing a generational progression in abstract art | Mark Jenkins | March 5, 2021 | Washington Post
Fig. 66 shows a biconical whorl, and its top is decorated to represent three Swastikas and three burning altars.
The Swastika | Thomas WilsonThe centers of the crosses are occupied by the central hole of the whorl, while the arms extend to the periphery.
The Swastika | Thomas WilsonThe specimen represented in fig. 76 is not a spindle-whorl, as shown by the number and location of the holes.
The Swastika | Thomas WilsonThe whorl shown in fig. 45 is nearly spherical, with two Swastikas in the upper part.
The Swastika | Thomas WilsonIn this collection is a spindle-whorl, found at 13½ feet (4 meters) depth and belonging to the fourth city.
The Swastika | Thomas Wilson
British Dictionary definitions for whorl
/ (wɜːl) /
botany a radial arrangement of three or more petals, stamens, leaves, etc, around a stem
zoology a single turn in a spiral shell
one of the basic patterns of the human fingerprint, formed by several complete circular ridges one inside another: Compare arch 1 (def. 4b), loop 1 (def. 10a)
anything shaped like a coil
Origin of whorl
1Derived forms of whorl
- whorled, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for whorl
[ hwôrl, wôrl, hwûrl, wûrl ]
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.
A single turn of a spiral shell of a mollusk.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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