Word of the Week (WOW) is a weekly challenge created by Heena Rathore P. It’s a fun way to improve vocabulary by learning new words every week.
To participate, simply do a post with your word and leave the link as a comment on Heena’s WOW post for this week (above link).
I’m up to the letter W this week so I’ll be looking for a good word beginning with X
So, here is my WOW for this week:
Word:
Whirligig
Pronunciation
whirl·i·gig
[hwur-li-gig]
Audio Link:
Part of Speech:
Noun
Related Forms:
Verb: whirligig
Meaning:
1. Any spinning toy, such as a top
2. A carousel; a merry-go-round
3. Something that continuously whirls, spins or moves in a circular or giddy way (e.g. the whirligig of social life or a windmill)
4. A whirligig beetle (a small, black, predatory beetle which swims rapidly in circles on the surface of still or slow-moving water and dives when alarmed).
Synonyms:
1. spinning top, humming top, whipping top, peg top,teetotum, plaything
2. merry-go-round, roundabout, fairground ride
3. (As a verb): spin, spin around, gyrate, reel, whirl, pirouette, spiral, rotate, roll, circle
4. beetle, water beetle, insect, bug
Antonyms:
None
Word Origin:
Mid-15c: a child’s toy, from whirl (v) + gig (n). Meaning (‘anything in constant motion’ from the 1580s; ‘fickle flighty person’ is from 1600; a type of water beetle from 1713.
Use in a Sentence:
1. ‘Look at that whirligig up there in the sky!’ Susan said to her six year old son.
2. Doing the firm’s financial accounts left Marcia’s mind a complete whirligig.
3. It has often been said that Time is a whirligig and that all things come round again at some point, including fashions.
If you’d like to see more interesting words visit Heena’s page:
Millie Thom 
‘Quixotic’ was stolen from you (after which you spent weeks in therapy) and now you are trying to make up for it by invoking windmills. I think it will work, Millie.
Ah, yes. Windmills are rather therapeutic. They look wonderful against the skyline and the constant motion of the sails is so… well, sort of hypnotic. I think I’m over the loss of quixotic now, Prospero. As you rightly say, recovery was a long process.
going out for my cycle
round about town
in hopes of that
whirligig feeling 🙂
What a lovely addition to my post your poem makes. Thank you so much for that, smilecalm. 🙂
What a fun post.
Thank you! 🙂 I think this word carries an element of fun before we even begin to look at its different meanings. Just saying it sounds like fun.
Sound of the word gives the feeling of what the object is and it is about!
It does, doesn’t it. I think the ‘whirl’ part is a bit of a giveaway! Haha. Thank you, Scrapydo. 🙂
I call the thing I hang my washing on a whirligig and every time I do I question if it’s a real word. So glad you’ve cleared that up. Mind for W I would have gone for Wobble or even Wibble, said in a Rowan Atkinson way with a pencil stuck up each nostril 😉
Haha – I’ve seen that clip a few times. A pic of R.A. doing that woud have made a great illustration for your choice of word.
🙂
Another cool word Millie!
Thank you, PJ! I like it because it sounds like fun. 🙂
It does!