vortex

From Latin vortex.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈvɔɹtɛks/
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vortex (plural vortexes or vortices)

1. A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column.
   • 2013 March 1, Frank Fish, George Lauder, “Not Just Going with the Flow”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 2, page 114:

     An extreme version of vorticity is a vortex. The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain, as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.

2. (figuratively) Anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some centre.
   • 2004: the consumer vortex that is East Hampton — The New Yorker, 30 August 2004, p.38
3. (figuratively) Anything that inevitably draws surrounding things into its current.
   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, part 2, chapter 1

     In early youth, the living drama acted around me, drew my heart and soul into its vortex.

4. (historical) A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or planet; part of a Cartesian theory accounting for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it.
5. (zoology) Any of numerous species of small Turbellaria belonging to Vortex and allied genera.

• vortical
• vorticity

• eddy
• ley line
• maelstrom

• vortex in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• vortex in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

From Latin vortex

• IPA^(key): /vɔʁ.tɛks/

vortex m (uncountable)

1. vortex

Archaic form of Latin vertex, from vertō.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈwor.teks/, [ˈwɔr.tɛks]

vortex m (genitive vorticis); third declension

1. whirlpool, eddy, vortex

Third declension.

• English: vortex
• French: vortex
• Portuguese: vórtice, vórtex
• Spanish: vórtice
• Italian: vortice

• vortex in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• vortex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• vortex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette