pinwheel
/ˈpɪnˌwiːl/ noun, verb
Forms pinwheels pinwheeling pinwheeled
- noun (engineering) A cogged (toothed) gear.
- noun A toy for children, comprising an artificial (usually plastic) stem and a flower that spins round in the wind like a tiny windmill.
- noun (pyrotechnics, US, Canada) A firework that spins in the shape of a spinning wheel.
- noun (cooking) A pastry made by laying out dough flat, smearing a topping over it and rolling it up into a spiral, then baking it, resulting in a swirl of filling.
- noun (cooking) Any food product consisting of layers (for example of pastry and sweet filling, or of bread and meat) rolled into a spiral.
- verb (ambitransitive) To spin. “The damaged fighter jet pinwheeled out of control, the g-forces pushing the pilot so hard he couldn't reach the ejection switch.”
Synonyms
Catherine wheel roll rollup swirl Aeonium haworthii pinwheel wind collector
Etymology
From pin + wheel.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “pinwheel”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details