Did you know?
William Butler Yeats opens his 1920 poem, "The Second Coming," with the following lines: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…." Often found in poetic or literary contexts as an alternative to the more familiar circle or spiral, gyre comes via the Latin gyrus from the Greek gyros, meaning "ring" or "circle." Gyre is also frequently encountered as an oceanographic term that refers to vast circular systems of ocean currents, such as the North Atlantic Gyre, a system of currents circling clockwise between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Gyre is also sometimes used of more localized vortices, such as those produced by whirlpools or tornadoes.
Examples of gyre in a Sentence
Mary Gilbert, CNN, 18 June 2024
The Sargasso Sea, a warm, calm expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean, is bordered not by land but by four strong currents—a gyre.
—Paige Williams, The New Yorker, 17 June 2024
These baobab seeds were likely transported across continents by the Indian Ocean gyre, a system of rotating currents in the Indian Ocean that circulate clockwise.
—Aaron Boorstein, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 May 2024
With a helicopter as chaperone, the eVTOL carves widening gyres two miles or more out from the Marina airfield.
—Marc Wortman, Rolling Stone, 25 Dec. 2023
See all Example Sentences for gyre 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gyre.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near gyre
Cite this Entry
“Gyre.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gyre. Accessed 2 Jul. 2024.
Copy Citation
Share