Verb

(en verb)

(ambitransitive) To twist or whirl, as an eddy.

I swirled my brush around in the paint.

* Charles Kingsley

The river swirled along.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=May 13 , author=Alistair Magowan , title=Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=The contest was a lot more even in the second half, as the wind swirled around the Stadium of Light, but it took Craig Gardner's superb block to prevent Young getting on the scoresheet.}}

To be arranged in a twist, spiral or whorl.

(figuratively) to circulate

* 2013 May 23, , " British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):

Mr. Cameron had a respite Thursday from the negative chatter swirling around him when he appeared outside 10 Downing Street to denounce the murder a day before of a British soldier on a London street.

Verb

To squeeze or twist tightly so that liquid is forced out.

You must wring your wet jeans before hanging them out to dry.

* Bible, Judg. vi. 38

He rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece.

* Shakespeare

Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.

To obtain by force.

The police said they would wring the truth out of that heinous criminal.

To hold tightly and press or twist.

Some of the patients waiting in the dentist's office were wringing their hands nervously.

He said he'd wring my neck if I told his girlfriend.

He wrung my hand enthusiastically when he found out we were related.

* Francis Bacon

The king began to find where his shoe did wring him.

* Bible, Leviticus i. 15

The priest shall bring it [a dove] unto the altar, and wring off his head

To writhe; to twist, as if in anguish.

To kill and animal, usually poultry, by breaking its neck by twisting.

* Shakespeare

'Tis all men's office to speak patience / To those that wring under the load of sorrow.

To pain; to distress; to torment; to torture.

* Clarendon

Too much grieved and wrung by an uneasy and strait fortune.

* Addison

Didst thou taste but half the griefs / That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus coldly.

To distort; to pervert; to wrest.

* Whitgift

How dare men thus wring the Scriptures?

To subject to extortion; to afflict, or oppress, in order to enforce compliance.

* Shakespeare

To wring the widow from her 'customed right.

* Hayward

The merchant adventurers have been often wronged and wringed to the quick.

(nautical) To bend or strain out of its position.

to wring a mast