whirl

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
whirl/wɜːl/

▶verb move or cause to move rapidly round and round.

■ move rapidly.

■ (of the head or mind) seem to spin round.

▶noun

• 1 a rapid movement round and round.

• 2 frantic activity: the mad social whirl.

• 3 a sweet or biscuit with a spiral shape: a hazelnut whirl.

– phrases
give something a whirl informal give something a try.
in a whirl in a state of confusion.

– derivatives
whirler noun,
whirling adjective,
whirlingly adverb.

– origin ME: the verb prob. from ON hvirfla ‘turn about’; the noun partly from Mid. Low Ger., MDu. wervel ‘spindle’, or from ON hvirfill ‘circle’, from a Gmc base meaning ‘rotate’.