twirl

noun

1. A movement where a person spins round elegantly; a pirouette.
2. Any rotating movement; a spin.

   “When the cock had now crowed for the third time, and the little larks had made their first twirl in the sky, and the infant light appeared in solitary white streaks in the east, then it went hush, hush, hush, through the bushes, and flowers, and stalks; and the hills rang again, and opened, and the little men went down.”

   “The conductor gave his baton a twirl, and the orchestra began to play.”

3. A little twist of some substance; a swirl.

   “Place the cream in a piping bag with a fairly large star pipe attached, fill each tartlet with a twirl of cream and top with a strawberry.”

4. (slang)A prison guard.

   “Which was in the main childishness and pettiness, the reason for this was that most of the twirls and the governors had […]”

verb

1. (intransitive)To perform a twirl.
2. (transitive)To rotate rapidly.

   “See ruddy maids, / Some taught with dexterous hand to twirl the wheel.”

   “No more beneath soft eve's consenting star / Fandango twirls his jocund castanet.”

3. (transitive)To twist round.

   “He inflated his chest, twirled his moustache, and thumped the table with a revulsion to thunderous indignation.”

4. To pitch.

   “When the batteries were announced, however, and Herb Pennock of the Boston Red Sox, probably the best pitcher in all baseballdom, was named to twirl for the invading team, we felt we had been tricked.”