WHIRLIGIG • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Whirligig

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noun

Whirligig n.

A child's toy, spun or whirled around like a wheel upon an axis, or like a top.

Anything which whirls around, or in which persons or things are whirled about, as a frame with seats or wooden horses. "With a whirligig of jubilant mosquitoes spinning about each head."

A mediaeval instrument for punishing petty offenders, being a kind of wooden cage turning on a pivot, in which the offender was whirled round with great velocity.

(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of beetles belonging to Gyrinus and allied genera. The body is firm, oval or boatlike in form, and usually dark colored with a bronzelike luster. These beetles live mostly on the surface of water, and move about with great celerity in a gyrating, or circular, manner, but they are also able to dive and swim rapidly. The larva is aquatic. Called also weaver, whirlwig, and whirlwig beetle.

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Etymology of 'Whirligig'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Whirligig" Quotes from Famous Books

... and over. He kept her much later than she had intended to stay, and a young moon was shining on the snow when she started home again. Pink Upham, stopping on his way home to supper to leave a feather whirligig he had made for Don, met her going out of the gate as ...

— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... now and then pausing to laugh boisterously at some recollection. As his whirligig tale touched upon indecent episodes, his voice lowered and he sought for convenient euphemisms, helped out by sympathetic nods. Mrs. Preston made several attempts to interrupt his aimless, wandering talk; but he started again each time, excited by the presence ...

— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... the mother of this family carrying her infant in her arms, and followed by her other children, a girl and two boys, who would amuse themselves by dragging little wooden horses, playing at soldiers with mock muskets, running against the wind with little whirligig mills, or frolicking about with a thousand of the antics of children. Their father, known every where as Old Weasel, was of a most resolute and unbending disposition; he made many enemies, and was ever at war with one or other of his ...

— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown

... in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys, The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks ...

— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of lazy-like, and looked at me. Then I noticed how big he was. Seemed to me he was all of seven foot high and broad according. And rigged up—my soul! He had on a wide, felt hat, with a whirligig top onto it, and a light checked suit, and gloves, and slung more style than a barber on Sunday. If I'D wore them kind of duds they'd have had me down to Danvers, clanking chains and picking straws, but on this ...

— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

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