Literary notes about WHORL (AI summary)
The word whorl is often employed to denote a circular, repeating arrangement found in both nature and human-made objects. It describes the spiral turns of shells and the layering of botanical structures, such as the successive rings of petals or leaves that create a natural symmetry [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In other contexts, whorl conveys more than mere form: it serves as a metaphor for movement or transformation, capturing the dynamic interplay of elements—be they the elegant cascade of hair or the rhythmic beat of sound [7][8]. This usage spans technical observations in scientific descriptions and poetic expressions that evoke a sense of continuous, circular progression.
- Gorgets were made of the outer shell, and large beads and these knobbed “ear bobs” from the inner whorl of the marine whelk, or conch.
— from Ocmulgee National Monument, Georgia by G. D. Pope - Whorl —a single turn or volution of a coiled shell.
— from Texas Fossils: An Amateur Collector's Handbook by William Henry Matthews - Sometimes the last whorl is compressed and attenuated at the base, and sometimes ventricose and not compressed.
— from A Manual of Conchology
According to the System Laid Down by Lamarck, with the Late Improvements by De Blainville. Exemplified and Arranged for the Use of Students. by Thomas Wyatt - The tulip has one whorl only, and it is called the envelope.
— from Popular Scientific Recreationsin Natural Philosphy, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, etc., etc., etc. by Gaston Tissandier - Its buds were pink, and it sprang from a whorl of leaves like those of a dandelion.
— from Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway by Effie Price Gladding - in diameter, with a thick tube; the petals are spreading, bright yellow in colour, and arranged in a regular, bell-like whorl.
— from Cactus Culture for Amateurs
Being Descriptions of the Various Cactuses Grown in This Country, With Full and Practical Instructions for Their Successful Cultivation by William Watson - Her hair, yellow as corn-silk, and caught in a low chignon at her back, escaped its restraint of pins and fell in a whorl down her shirt-waist.
— from Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole by Fannie Hurst - Here it is: Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear; Pipe me to pastures still, and be The music that I care to hear.
— from The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces by Joyce Kilmer