spiral
Definitions
General English
General Science
- adjective circling around a central point and constantly increasing or decreasing in size
Banking
- noun something which twists round and round getting higher all the time
Construction
Electronics
- A curve which winds around a fixed point while continuously increasing or decreasing its distance from said point.
- A coil of wire in the shape of a spiral (1).
Medical
- adjective running in a continuous circle upwards
Military
- noun (written as Spiral)a Soviet-designed laser-guided anti-tank missile (ATGW)
Origin & History of “spiral”
Spiral comes via French spiral from medieval Latin spīrālis ‘coiled’, a derivative of Latin spīra. this in turn went back to Greek speira ‘coil’. English also acquired the noun, as spire (16th c.), which is used for the ‘tip of a spiral shell’. It is not the same word as the spire of a church (OE), which originally meant ‘stalk, stem’, and may go back ultimately to the base *spī- (source of English spike ‘pointed flower head’ and spine). The spiraea (17th c.) is etymologically the ‘coiled’ plant; and spiraea in turn was used to form the term aspirin.
