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1719 entries found
gyrfalcon (n.)
large falcon used in hawking, also gerfalcon, c. 1200, partly Englished from Old French girfauc "large northern falcon," probably from a Frankish compound with Latin falco "hawk" (see falcon) + first element meaning "vulture," from Proto-Germanic *ger (source of Old High German gir "vulture"). Folk etymology since the Middle Ages has connected it with Latin gyrus (see gyre (n.)) in reference to "circling" in the air.
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gyro (n.)
sandwich made from roasted lamb, 1971, originally the meat itself, as roasted on a rotating spit, from Modern Greek gyros "a circle" (see gyre (n.)). Mistaken in English for a plural and shorn of its -s.
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gyrocopter (n.)
1915, from gyro- + ending as in helicopter.
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gyromancy (n.)
1550s, method of divination said to have been practiced by a person walking in a circle marked with characters or signs till he fell from dizziness, the inference being drawn from the place in the circle at which he fell; from Medieval Latin gyromantia, from Greek gyyros "circle" (see gyro- (n.)) + manteia "divination, oracle" (see -mancy).
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gyroscope (n.)
heavy rotating wheel with an axis free to turn in any direction, 1853, improved and named in French 1852 by Foucault, from Greek gyros "a circle" (see gyre (n.)) + skopos "watcher" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe"), because the device demonstrates that the earth rotates.
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gyroscopic (adj.)
1869, from gyroscope + -ic. Related: Gyroscopically.
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gyrostat (n.)
instrument for illustrating the dynamics of rotation, 1868, from gyro- + -stat.
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gyrostatics (n.)
branch of dynamics dealing with rotating bodies, 1883, from gyrostatic (1875); see gyrostat + -ics.
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gyrus (n.)
convolution between grooves of the brain, 1827, from Latin gyrus "circle, circuit, career," from Greek gyros "a ring, circle" (see gyre (n.)).
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