Definition of "gyre"

gyre¹

/d͡ʒaɪ.ə/

noun
plural gyres
1. (chiefly literary, poetic)
  1. A swirling vortex.
  2. A circular or spiral motion; also, a circle described by a moving body; a revolution, a turn.
    Quotations
    Quick, and more quick he ſpins in giddy Gires, / Then falls, and in much Foam his Soul expires.
    1700, [John] Dryden, “Meleager and Atalanta, out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], page 112
    What is art, / But life upon the larger scale, the higher, / When, graduating up in a spiral line / Of still expanding and ascending gyres, / It pushes toward the intense significance / Of all things, hungry for the Infinite? / Art's life,—and where we live, we suffer and toil.
    1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Fourth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, pages 176–177
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, […]
    1920, William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”, in Michael Robartes and the Dancer, Churchtown, Dundrum [Dublin]: The Cuala Press, page 19
2. (anatomy, zootomy, archaic) Synonym of gyrus (“a fold or ridge on the cerebral cortex of the brain”)
3. (oceanography) An ocean current caused by wind which moves in a circular manner, especially one that is large-scale and observed in a major ocean.

gyre²

/d͡ʒaɪ.ə/

verb
third-person singular simple present gyres, present participle gyring, simple past and past participle gyred
1. (intransitive) To spin around; to gyrate, to whirl.
  Quotations
  The host of heauenly beautyes moue, / Depainted in their proper stories, / As well the fixd as wandring glories, / Which from their proper orbes not goe, / Whether they gyre swift or slowe: […]
  1605, Michael Drayton, “[Songs from the ‘Shepherd’s Garland’.] From Eclogue ij.”, in Cyril Brett, editor, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, published 1907, pages 240–241, lines 4–8
  Jabberwocky. / 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wa[b]e; / All mimsy were the borogoves, / And the mome raths outgrabe.
  1871 December 27 (indicated as 1872), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Looking-glass House”, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, London: Macmillan and Co., page 21
2. (transitive, rare) To make (something) spin or whirl around; to spin, to whirl.