Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A violent or turbulent situation.
- noun A whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A celebrated whirlpool or violent current in the Arctic ocean, near the western coast of Norway, between the islands Moskenäsö and Mosken, formerly supposed to suck in and destroy everything that approached it at any time, but now known not to be dangerous except under certain conditions.
- noun Hence Any resistless movement; any influence or passion which makes victims of all who come within its power: as, the maelstrom of fashion or of speculation; the maelstrom of dissipation or of crime.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A celebrated whirlpool on the coast of Norway.
- noun An uncontrollable agitated or confusedly disordered state or situation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A large and
violent whirlpool . - noun Any violent or
turbulent situation .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a powerful circular current of water (usually the result of conflicting tides)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Baldwin honestly tries to describe the result, but expressive insight into that emotional maelstrom is not a power within his possession and is not really on offer here.
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Baldwin honestly tries to describe the result, but expressive insight into that emotional maelstrom is not a power within his possession and is not really on offer here.
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What would it be like to view that maelstrom from a nearby system?
The SF Fanatic: SF Explores The Ideas Mainstream Fiction Won't 2010
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Catapulting Jackson into the eye of the maelstrom was his explosively creative pairing with another multi-faceted industry legend, Quincy Jones.
Gail Mitchell: Michael Jackson's Unparalleled Musical Legacy 2009
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What one historian has called a maelstrom of retaliation and counter-retaliation built to a howling crescendo.
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What one historian has called a maelstrom of retaliation and counter-retaliation built to a howling crescendo.
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As a matter of fact the maelstrom is a whirlpool lying where Poe places it, and it has been made noted by many other accounts than this of Poe, most of which are exaggerated, but none of them so brilliant in execution as
Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 Charles Herbert Sylvester
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Every time we pass through the Atlantic Avenue maelstrom, which is twelve times a week, we see, as plain as print, the beginning of two magazine tales.
Plum Pudding Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned Christopher Morley 1923
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My other chip from the maelstrom was a lad half grown.
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"You're gonna bring this jury into what is already fairly described as a maelstrom of media activity, and it's not going to get any better," he says.
NPR Topics: News 2011
brtom commented on the word maelstrom
The president is about to escalate himself into a full-scale maelstrom.
Joseph Duemer, Sharp Sand
December 22, 2006
librarymistress commented on the word maelstrom
"in this cruel place your voice above the maelstrom" (Sisters of Mercy: "Marian")
February 5, 2009
RevBrently commented on the word maelstrom
From p. 30 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":
For my hosts, the Abbey was a springboard into eternity; for me a retiring place to write a book and spring more efficiently back into the maelstrom.
January 21, 2014