What does the word whorl mean?

Answer 1

Whorl means:

• something that whirls or winds around a center (a whorl of smoke)

• one of the turns of a shell (as of a snail) having just one valve

• a drum-shaped section on the lower part of a spindle in spinning or weaving machinery serving as a pulley for the tape drive that rotates the spindle

• an arrangement of similar anatomical parts (as leaves) in a circle around a point on an axis

• something that whirls, coils, or spirals or whose form suggests such movement : swirl

• one of the turns of a univalve shell

• a fingerprint in which the central papillary ridges turn through at least one complete circle