tourbillon

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French tourbillon (“whirlwind”)

Noun

tourbillon (plural tourbillons)

1. A rotating frame, containing the escapement of a clock or watch, that attempts to compensate for the effects of gravity.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 514:

     Time was vulnerable to the force of gravity. So Breguet came up with the tourbillon, which isolated the balance wheel and escarpment off on a little platform of their own

2. A whirlwind.
3. A kind of firework that gyrates in the air.
4. Anything with a spiral movement.

Translations

rotating frame, containing the escapement of a clock

• Japanese: トゥールビヨン (tūrubiyon)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: турбийо́н (ru) m (turbijón)

Anagrams

• bunitrolol

---

French

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French torbeil + -on.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tuʁ.bi.jɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

tourbillon m (plural tourbillons)

1. whirlwind
2. eddy, whirlpool
3. (physics) vortex
4. (figuratively) whirl, whirlwind, maelstrom
5. tourbillon

Derived terms

• tourbillonnaire
• tourbillonner

Further reading

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