Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vortex

Vor′tex (vôr′tĕks), n.; pl. E. Vortexes (#), L. Vortices (#). [L. vortex, vertex, -icis, fr. vortere, vertere, to turn. See Vertex.]

1. A mass of fluid, especially of a liquid, having a whirling or circular motion tending to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle, and to draw in towards the center bodies subject to its action; the form assumed by a fluid in such motion; a whirlpool; an eddy.

2. (Cartesian System) A supposed collection of particles of very subtile matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortices.

3. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of small Turbellaria belonging to Vortex and allied genera. See Illustration in Appendix.

Vortex atom (Chem.), a hypothetical ring-shaped mass of elementary matter in continuous vortical motion. It is conveniently regarded in certain mathematical speculations as the typical form and structure of the chemical atom. — Vortex wheel, a kind of turbine.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.