vortex
 
GEORGE SILK/The LIFE Picture Collection/GettyImages
On the trip there were also crocodiles, whirlpools, waves, tides, drug smugglers and pirates to overcome.
When the tide changes, the water erupts into a frothy mess, with whirlpools big enough to swallow kayaks.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Floods, tides & currents
atmospheric river
deluge
eddy
flash flood
flood
flood tide
floodplain
gyre
high tide
high water mark
inundation
low tide
overwhelm
swash
tidally
tide table
turbulence
turbulent
waterline
whelm

whirlpoolnoun[C] (DIFFICULT SITUATION)

a difficult and confusing situation, often one that it it is difficult to get out of:
Along with many of the other major global economies, we are in a whirlpool of ever-worsening economic failure.
She found herself sucked into a whirlpool of misery.
On the day after Cicero's speech the city became a whirlpool of rumours,
The family was caught up in a whirlpool of grief.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Difficult situations and unpleasant experiences
a hard/tough row to hoeidiom
adversity
at your worstidiom
Augean
bad hair day
downer
epidemic
half nelson
hardness
have a bumpy rideidiom
pall
prison
purgatory
push factor
quagmire
quicksand
scrape
strait
the Augean Stablesidiom
the hard wayidiom

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Confusion, confusing and feeling confused

whirlpoolnoun[C] (BATH)

(alsowhirlpool bath); (US alsowhirlpool bathtub, whirlpool tub)
a bath or pool into which warm water flows through small holes, producing a pleasant bubbling effect:
The hotel has 12 bedrooms, two freshwater pools, two whirlpools, and an adjacent beach.
There is a heated main pool, a whirlpool bath and a shallow children's pool within the grounds of the hotel.
The master suite has a whirlpool bathtub and private patio.
The study found that 56 percent of the whirlpools tested were swimming with bacteria.
The hotel has 10 rooms, each with a waterside view, whirlpool bath, and fireplace.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Bathroom fixtures & fittings
backsplash
basin
bath rack
bathroom fittings
bathroom suite
bathtub
drain
flush
hip bath
hot tub
Jacuzzi
medicine cabinet
plughole
shaver point
shower pan
shower tray
showerhead
sink
splashback
towel rail

whirlpool | American Dictionary

whirlpool
noun[ C ]
us/ˈhwɜrlˌpul, ˈwɜrl-/

whirlpoolnoun[C] (CIRCULAR CURRENT)

water that moves in a powerful, circular current, sucking into its center anything that floats near it

whirlpoolnoun[C] (POOL WITH CURRENTS)

an artificial pool with currents of water flowing through it:
Some health clubs have whirlpools and steam rooms.

Examples of whirlpool

whirlpool
Users of the whirlpool spa on the deck were fewer than 10 a day.
The attack rate was 71 % (27\\38) and 24 cases (83 %) used the whirlpool.
She had used neither pool nor spa except for the women's indoor spa and possibly also the whirlpool spa on the ship.
As media attention was focused on the whirlpool, it is possible that some of the non-responders did not visit the whirlpool area.
Disentangling the activities among the epidemiological cases who visited the whirlpool area showed that 23 of 24 cases had used both whirlpool and shower.
After adjusting for confounding factors, only the use of the whirlpool proved to be a risk factor.
Students and staff were battered from all sides, sometimes on top of the wave and sometimes struggling in eddies and whirlpools.
Visiting the whirlpool area, taking a shower or using the whirlpool or the sauna were the activities most associated with a high risk for infection.
The transitional cohort of older people has been caught up in and marginalised by the whirlpool of political, economic, social and migrationrelated changes since 1990.
I expected to open the cover and be drawn into a whirlpool of complicated statistical equations and methodologies.
With our clinically based case definition we found only two cases who had not visited the whirlpool area.
The core of the structural and syntactic matrix is hollow, like the center of a whirlpool.
But epidemiological investigation strongly suggests that the whirlpool was the source of the outbreak.
He had used the men's indoor spa bath twice a day for 3 days, but neither a whirlpool spa nor a warm pool during the cruise.
Nonetheless, our investigation shows that the conditions for an outbreak of serious legionellosis were present which underlines the importance of strict maintenance routines and regular controls of whirlpools.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.