Gyrate
adj, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To revolve round a central point; to move spirally about an axis, as a tornado. intransitive
"The stripper gyrated sexily around a pole."
- 2 revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis wordnet
- 3 to wind or move in a spiral course wordnet
- 1 Having coils or convolutions.
Example
More examples"The stripper gyrated sexily around a pole."
Etymology
Back-formation from gyration, on the basis of -ate (verb-forming suffix), from gyre (“to spin around; to gyrate, to whirl; (rare) to make (something) spin or whirl around; to spin, to whirl”) + -ation (suffix indicating actions or processes), further from Late Middle English giren (“to turn (something) away; to cause (something) to revolve or rotate; to travel in a circle”), from Old French girer (“to turn”), from Latin gȳrō (“to turn in a circle, rotate; to circle or revolve around”), from gȳrus (“circle; circular motion; circuit, course”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix), from Ancient Greek γῦρος (gûros, “a circle, a ring”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend; to curve”). By surface analysis, gyre + -ate (verb-forming suffix).
From gyrus (“fold, convolution”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.