Also 6, 8 twirle, 7 twerle. [f. TWIRL v.1] The action or an act of twirling, or the condition of being twirled; a rapid whirling or spinning; a twist; a spin; a whirl; also fig.
1598. Florio, Giro,… a twirle.
1700. T. Brown, Amusem. Ser. & Com., City Circle, 136. A Grave Old Gentleman … gave his Whiskers a Twirl.
1709–10. Steele, Tatler, No. 128, ¶ 4. The dextrous Twirl of your Mop.
1775. Adair, Amer. Ind., 400. He commonly sends it [ball] the right course, by an artful sharp twirl.
1818. Moore, Fudge Fam. Paris, v. 2. Like a tee-totum, I’m all in a twirl.
1827. Southey, Devil’s Walk, x. Satan gave thereat his tail A twirl of admiration.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, viii. He performed … such spins and twirls as filled the company with astonishment.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xiv. (1856), 106. A ballet-dancer in full twirl.
b. Anything that twirls or is twirled; † a reel, winch (obs.); each of the whorls of a shell; a curved line. Also fig.
Steam twirl, a revolving steam-heated cylinder for mixing materials in soap-making (Cent. Dict., Supp., 1909).
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xxii. (Roxb.), 277/2. An Instrument called a Twerle, or Line Reeles: It is to wind a long line of a fishing Rod vpon.
1695. Phil. Trans., XIX. 188. The inner Twirls of which Shell were preserved entire.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., III. Arianism, 12. Athanasius’s Creed is a Twirle of Words.
a. 1728. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Fossils, II. (1729), 37. The Twirl in this is different from that of the others;… the Twirls turning from the Right-hand to the left.
1841. Carlyle, Misc., Baillie (1857), IV. 230. Not a twirl in that cramp penmanship.
