whirl

Wirbel (Old High German (h) wirbil, (h) wirvil , from (h) werban, (h) werfan "to turn") means:

• a type of movement in currents, see vortex (physics)
• a flow circling around a common center line, see vortex (fluid mechanics)
• Air vortex: small currents (= from bottom to top); Tornado (= from top to bottom)
• in the anatomy of vertebrates, a bone of the spinal column surrounding the spinal cord, see vertebrae (anatomy)
• In hair science, the point on the head where the hair diverges in a circle
• a feature of fingerprints in criminology
• the starting point of the coils of a snail shell
• the vortex (umbo) on the shell of a shell, see vortex (umbo)
• in music the even, rapid beating of a drum, timpani, etc., see pegs (playing technique)
• on musical instruments a rotatable part for tensioning (tuning) a string, see pegs (musical instrument making)
• part of the equipment of a fishing rod when fishing, see swivel (fishing)
• a rotatable lifting device in mechanics, see swivel (lifting device)

See also:

• Vortex
• Dice

Wiktionary: Wirbel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

This is a disambiguation page for differentiating between several terms identified with the same word.