vortex

From Latin vortex. Doublet of vertex.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈvɔɹtɛks/

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• Rhymes: -ɔɹtɛks

vortex (plural vortexes or vortices)

1. A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column.
   • 2013 March 1, Frank Fish, George Lauder, “Not Just Going with the Flow”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 1 May 2013, page 114:

     An extreme version of vorticity is a vortex. The vortex is a spinning, cyclonic mass of fluid, which can be observed in the rotation of water going down a drain, as well as in smoke rings, tornados and hurricanes.

2. (figuratively) Anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some centre.
   • 2004 August 30, Rebecca Mead, “Flip-Flop Emergency”, in The New Yorker‎, page 38:

     It’s hard to imagine that there is any major American clothing brand that does not have a store in the consumer vortex that is East Hampton; […]

3. (figuratively) Anything that inevitably draws surrounding things into its current.
   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter 1, in The Last Man. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:

     In early youth, the living drama acted around me, drew my heart and soul into its vortex.

4. (historical) A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or planet; part of a Cartesian theory accounting for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it.
5. (zoology) Any of numerous species of small Turbellaria belonging to Vortex and allied genera.

• vortical
• vorticity

• eddy
• ley line
• maelstrom

vortex (third-person singular simple present vortexes, present participle vortexing, simple past and past participle vortexed)

1. (chemistry) To mix using a vortex mixer

• “vortex”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• vortex in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

From Latin vortex.

• IPA^(key): /vɔʁ.tɛks/

• Audio

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vortex m (uncountable)

1. vortex

• “vortex”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈu̯or.teks/, [ˈu̯ɔrt̪ɛks̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈvor.teks/, [ˈvɔrt̪eks]

vortex m (genitive vorticis); third declension

1. Archaic form of vertex.

Third-declension noun.

• “vortex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• vortex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• vortex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

Borrowed from French vortex or Latin vortex.

vortex n (plural vortexuri)

1. vortex