maelstrom
/ˈmeɪl.stɹəm/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.69 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "To his right fell a gleaming sheet of water, and below it was a maelstrom, that made one giddy by its terrific gyrations."
- "The falukah plunged over a waterfall and was almost submerged, was caught again in a maelstrom and went twirling on in the blackness."
- "A hulking shape burst through the doorway and hurtled down the corridor, leaving a maelstrom of air currents in his wake."
- "It was of Jean Paul's doing: some single billow in that vast World-Mahlstrom of Humour, with its heaven-kissing coruscations, which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of death!"
- "He escaped at last, dizzy from the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that had caught and whirled him."
- "The terminal station, Richmond, is managed by South West Trains, heirs to the London & South Western Railway, and here the District fades into a railway maelstrom, since Richmond is not only on the Waterloo-Reading line but is also the westerly terminus of the London Overground."
Etymology
The word was originally the name of a giant whirlpool off Norway in the Arctic Ocean which was said to destroy all ships that came close to it, likely the actual tidal pool system of Moskstraumen in Lofoten. It is borrowed from early modern Dutch maelstrom (“whirlpool”) (obsolete) (modern Dutch maalstroom), from malen (“to whirl around; to grind”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”)) + stroom (“stream; river; current or flow of water or other liquid”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow, stream”)), and was popularized by Edgar Allen Poe’s short story A Descent into the Maelström (1841). Cognates * Danish malstrøm * German Mahlstrom * Swedish malström
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *melh₂-, maelstrom, *srew-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmeɪl.stɹəm/
- British English: /ˈmeɪl.stɹəm/