Also 6 whirpole, whoorlpool, etc. [f. WHIRL- + POOL sb.1 Cf. late OE. hwyrfepól and wirfelmere.]
1. A place in, or part of, a river or the sea, where the water is in constant (and usually rapid) circular movement, due to the configuration of the channel or bottom, to some obstruction, or to the meeting of adverse currents or wind and tide; a (large and violent) eddy or vortex.
1530. Palsgr., 288/1. Whirpole a depe place in a ryver, where the water tourneth rounde.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 75. Many whorlepooles and shelfes.
1613. J. Saris, Voy. Japan (Hakl. Soc.), 66. Drowned in a wherlpoole.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., II. xi. 94. A guilty conscience is like a whirlpool, drawing in all to it self which otherwise would passe by.
1774. Pennant, Tour Scotl. in 1772, 359. Eddies and whirlpools rising … with furious boilings.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), I. 150. The river of Caubul … forms numerous rapids and whirlpools.
1880. Geikie, Phys. Geog., iii. 154. Where the tide is thrown from side to side against sunken rocks, or where two opposing currents meet…, the water forms whirlpools.
transf. 1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 30. The whirl-pool of the spirits in the blood.
1799. W. Tooke, View Russ. Emp., I. 65. Which … buries both men and cattle in whirlpools of snow and sand.
1903. Agnes M. Clerke, Probl. Astrophysics, 446. Those cosmic ‘whirlpools,’ every trait of which testifies to the counterplay of multiple activities.
b. fig. in various applications: esp. a destructive or absorbing agency by which something is figured as engulfed or swallowed up; a scene of confused and turbulent activity.
1529. S. Fish, Supplic. Beggers, 10. Howe all the substaunce of your Realme … rynneth hedlong ynto the insaciabill whyrlepole of these gredi goulafres.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 63. Drowned in the whirlepoole of obliuion.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lxix. 4. In ye deepest whoorlpools of aduersities, faith may hold vs vp.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., x. Wks. 1851, III. 307. The non-resident … Prelats, the gulphs and whirle pooles of benefices, but the dry pits of all sound doctrine.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 419. In the middest of the Whirl-pooles of Change.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Walk round Lond., Coffee-Houses (1709), 36. The Whirl-pool of Poetry suck’d me in, and I fell a Rhiming.
1831. G. P. R. James, Philip Aug., xliii. What a whirlpool of contending feelings!
1863. Dickens, Uncomm. Trav., xxii. You may revolve in a whirlpool of red shirts, shaggy beards [etc.].
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., xcvii. III. 362. Europeans … have assumed … that public life will draw … enough of the highest ability into its whirlpool.
2. attrib. and Comb.
1602. Marston, Antonio’s Rev., IV. ii. They have … sunke the tossed galleasse in depth Of whirlepoole scorne.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, IV. Oracle, 34. Bitter wave of troubled flesh, And whirl-pool-turnings of the lower spright.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., III. 159. To recoyl by a double whirlpool-motion.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 6 March, 6/2. The whirlpool rapids [of the Niagara].
Hence Whirlpooling ppl. a., circling or eddying like a whirlpool.
1848. New Orleans Weekly Delta., 10 July, 4/6. There he beholds in its immense boiling, bubbling, whirlpooling cauldron.
a. 1861. T. Winthrop, Life in Open Air (1863), 48. A birch [canoe] … lies, light as a leaf, on whirlpooling surfaces.
