Also 5 Sc. ydy, 6–7 edie, eddee, -ie. [Of unknown history; app. first recorded in 15th c.; if of Eng. origin, the sense seems to point to connection with ED-; cf. ON. iða of same meaning.]
1. ‘The water that by some interruption in its course, runs contrary to the direction of the tide or current’ (Adm. Smyth); a circular motion in water, a small whirlpool.
a. 1455. Houlate, lxiv. The barde … socht wattir to wesche him thar out in ane ydy.
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius (1570), 245 (R.). Suche as in this case escaped theire enemies, were eyther drowned wyth the vyolence of the water, or the eddies of the streame.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low-C. Warrs, 251. The strong eddy or Whirlepoole of the River, turning it round, brought it into the Trench.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, I. 131. Those great eddees … that suck into them … whatever comes within their reach.
1727. Thomson, Spring, 816. The madness of the straiten’d stream Turns in black eddies round.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., III. vii. The wheeling eddies boil.
1882. White, Naval Archit., 449. It is blunt tails rather than blunt noses that cause eddies.
2. transf. Wind, fog, dust, etc., moving in a similar way; a circular movement of wind, etc.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), I. 173. Rain … brought … by the eddy in the winds.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. i. 269. Indicated through circling eddies of fog.
1878. M. A. Brown, trans. Runeberg’s Nadeschda, 22. A dustcloud rolls in eddies forth.
3. fig.
1791. G. Morris, in Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), IV. 413. There is in the current of their affairs, a strong eddy or counter tide.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., II. 5. An eddy of criticism.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xlviii. The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe.
1868. Stanley, Westm. Ab., iii. 135. These are but the eddies of the royal history.
1875. Farrar, Seekers, II. iv. 231. In the mighty eddies of an unseen, mysterious agency.
4. Comb., as eddy-breeze, -current, -stream, -tide; eddy-rock (see quot.); eddy-water (also eddy, Adm. Smyth), the dead-water under a ship’s counter. Also EDDY-WIND.
1799. Naval Chron., I. 250. *Eddy breezes from a hilly shore.
1600. Hakluyt, Voy., III. 291 (R.). From the Cape to Virginia … are none but *eddie currents.
1877. A. Green, Phys. Geol., iv. § 1. 124. Rock possessing this [Current-Bedding] structure is sometimes called *Eddy-Rock by quarrymen and well-sinkers.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 352. They would rather have an *eddy stream against them.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., x. 48. An *Eddie tide is where the water doth runne backe contrary to the tide.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Aug., 8/2. Owing to the eddy tide these operations were not attended with success.
