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Whorl   Listen
noun
Whorl  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A circle of two or more leaves, flowers, or other organs, about the same part or joint of a stem.
2.
(Zool.) A volution, or turn, of the spire of a univalve shell.
3.
(Spinning) The fly of a spindle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whorl" Quotes from Famous Books



... was, their hands plied labour unceasing. 310 Each in her left upheld with soft fleece clothed a distaff, Then did the right that drew forth thread with upturn of fingers Gently fashion the yarn which deftly twisted by thumb-ball Speeded the spindle poised by thread-whorl perfect of polish; Thus as the work was wrought, the lengths were trimmed wi' the fore-teeth, 315 While to their thin, dry lips stuck wool-flecks severed by biting, Which at the first outstood from yarn-hanks evenly fine-drawn. Still at their feet in front soft fleece-flecks white as ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... footstalk. Calyx of 3 spreading sepals, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, or about length of 3 pointed, oval petals; stamens 6; anthers longer than filaments; pistil spreading into 3 short, recurved stigmas. Stem: Stout, 8 to i6 in. high, from tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: In a whorl of 3; broadly ovate, abruptly pointed, netted-veined. Fruit: A 6-angled, ovate, reddish berry. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to North ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... "the timid spider of the thickets suspends by ethereal cables the branching whorl of his snare, which the tears of the night have turned into chaplets of jewels...The magical jewellery sparkles in the sun, attracting mosquitoes and butterflies; but whosoever approaches too closely perishes, a victim of curiosity." ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... seven pieces of rock-crystal arranged diagonally, and with a knop of the same, set at a later date. The crook is set with precious stones, rubies, turquoises, aquamarine, and lapis lazuli. Within is the Lamb holding a cross; under it the whorl finishes with a dragon. A much older bishop's staff is of worm-eaten wood—set in metal at a later date to preserve it from destruction—said to have been given to S. Hermagoras by S. Peter or S. Mark. ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... has been well shown by Dutrochet, {14} who found different individuals of Solanum dulcamara twining in opposite directions, and these had their leaves in each case spirally arranged in the same direction. A dense whorl of many leaves would apparently be incommodious for a twining plant, and some authors assert that none have their leaves thus arranged; but a twining Siphomeris has whorls of ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... her, remembering the old trouble when that kind of a kachina had done such an awful thing. The girls all ran into a room and on down into a lower room, and the Huckovi girl followed them and caught the chief's daughter and cut off a whorl of her hair and also cut her throat. Then she went out on the house top and shook out the whorl for ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... many another mediaeval architect has done, decked his roofs as Nature has decked hers, with the spruce and fir-tree spires, which cling to the hill-side of the crag, old above young, pinnacle above pinnacle, whorl above whorl; and clothed with them the sides and summit of the stone mountain which he had raised, till, like a group of firs upon an isolated rock, every point of the building should seem in act to grow toward heaven, and the grey leads of the Minster roof stand out amid peaks and ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... discover querns, or hand millstones, and stones for bruising the corn. The bones of young oxen a few days old, discovered in the mounds, show that they knew the use of milk, and how to get a good supply. A rude spindle-whorl shows that they knew how to weave stuffs for their clothing, and the numerous buttons, fasteners, and belts prove that the clothes were fitted to the wearer, and not ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... whorl, Litter the marges of the sphere With wrack of unregarded pearl, To shape that little thing your ear: Creation, just to make one girl, Hath travailed with ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... a corolla, which means a garland, or a kind of crown; and the word is a very good one, because it indicates that the flower-cup is made, as our clay cups are, on a potter's wheel; that it is essentially a revolute form—a whirl or (botanically) 'whorl' of leaves; in reality successive round the base of the urn ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... the cuttings, a slanting cut is made close below the lowest bud, while about an inch of wood is left above the upper bud. When possible, a heel of old wood is left at the lower end; or, still better, a whorl of buds, as roots usually start from each bud. The finished cuttings are tied in bundles, all butts one way, and are then ready to be heeled-in. This is done by burying in trenches, butts up, and covering with a few inches of soil. It is important to invert the cuttings in trenching, since otherwise ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... remarkable when the cotyledons take the form of many little leaves gathered about an axis, and the stalk which grows gradually from their midst produces the following leaves arranged around it singly in a whorl. This may be observed very exactly in the growth of the pinus species. Here a corolla of needles forms at the same time a calyx, and we shall have occasion to remember the present case in connection with ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... cowering over the quart pot to warm the hands and face, one was aware of a gelid mediaeval back behind one. To be warm all round in an English house is a thing impossible, at least to the traveller, who finds the natives living in what seems to him a whorl of draughts. In entering his own room he is apt to find the window has been put down, but this is not merely to let in some of the outside warmth; it is also to make a current of air to the open door. Even if the window has not been ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... experimented on; and some were pinched too severely, and [page 188] some not enough. Only one case succeeded, namely, with the spruce-fir. The leading shoot was not killed, but its growth was checked; at its base there were three lateral shoots in a whorl, two of which were pinched, one being thus killed; the third was left untouched. These lateral shoots, when operated on (July 14th) stood at an angle of 8o above the horizon; by Sept. 8th the unpinched ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... three inches in length; spiderworts of fine blue or yellow or even pink. Different coloured asclepedials; beautiful yellow and red umbelliferous flowering plants; dill and wild parsnips; pretty flowery aloes, yellow and red, in one whorl of blossoms; peas, and many other flowering plants which I do not know. Very few birds or any kind of game. The people are Babisa, who have fled from the west and are busy catching fish ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... cyme, chloranthy, efflorescence, Flora, perianth, pistil, pistillate, staminate, pollen, prefloration raceme, reflorescence, pollinate, pollination, stamen, stigma, umbel, verticil, verticillate, whorl, spadix, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... and here is the first real herbaceous flower of this spring, the dwarf white trillium, or wake-robin. How beautiful it looks, its three pure, waxy-white petals, its six golden anthers and three long styles, and its pretty whorl of three ovate leaves, at the summit of a stem about four inches high. A little farther and we find a group of them and then other clusters, fresh and pure and sweet enough to make a ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... unobserved, the Emu danced like a bird demented. On tiptoe, absurdly elongated, round and round, ecstatically, deliriously, he danced. He danced till his legs and his neck were as one high perpendicular pole and his body a mere whorl of feathers spinning round it, driven by the flapping ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Acacia verticillata. Whorl leaved Acacia, or Prickly Mimosa, so called from its sharp pointed leaves standing out in whorls round the stem like the spokes ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris



Words linked to "Whorl" :   sausage curl, coil, construction, coiffure, scroll, hank, calyx, dreadlock, corolla, hair, lock, spiral, forelock, volute, structure, crimp, helix



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