gyre

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 23, 2020 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>gyre</strong> &#149; \JYRE\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><strong>:</strong> a circular or spiral motion or form; <em>especially</em> <strong>:</strong> a giant circular oceanic surface current</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>Sophia will be focusing her graduate studies on the effects of ocean <em>gyres</em> on North America's climate.</p> <p>"The exception has been the Weddell Sea … which retains much of its ice from year to year because of cold winds from the south and a circular current, or <em>gyre</em>, that keeps the ice from drifting into warmer waters that would cause it to melt more." — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/climate/antarctica-sea-ice-climate-change.html#:~:text=The%20exception%20has%20been%20the,cause%20it%20to%20melt%20more.">Henry Fountain, <em>The New York Times</em>, 17 June 2020</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>William Butler Yeats opens his 1920 poem, "The Second Coming," with the following lines: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…." Often found in poetic or literary contexts as an alternative to the more familiar <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circle">circle</a></em> or <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spiral#h2">spiral</a></em>, <em>gyre</em> comes via the Latin <em>gyrus</em> from the Greek <em>gyros</em>, meaning "ring" or "circle." <em>Gyre</em> is also frequently encountered as an oceanographic term that refers to vast circular systems of ocean currents, such as the North Atlantic Gyre, a system of currents circling clockwise between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. <em>Gyre</em> is also sometimes used of more localized vo