A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1467 entries
whirlpool
A whirlpool is a rotating body of water produced where opposing currents meet or where a fast tidal stream is forced through a constriction over an uneven bottom. The large tidal ones form and unform with the tide and are predictable to the minute. A whirlpool with a downward suction strong enough to draw objects under is a vortex, and very few natural ones qualify.
Etymology
The word is Old English and is a plain compound. The most powerful examples carry their own names rather than being called whirlpools: the maelstrom off Lofoten, the Corryvreckan between Jura and Scarba, the Saltstraumen in Norway, and the Naruto whirlpools between Shikoku and Awaji.
Notes
The literary versions are considerably larger than the real ones. Poe and Verne both have ships swallowed whole, and Homer’s Charybdis does the same, but the tidal whirlpools that inspired them are dangerous to small craft through turbulence and standing waves rather than by pulling anything down a hole. Corryvreckan has a standing wave that can reach fifteen feet on a spring flood against a westerly.