VORTICES

A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column.

Anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some centre.

Example: "2004: the consumer vortex that is east hampton — the new yorker, 30 august 2004, p.38"

Anything that inevitably draws surrounding things into its current.

A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter, endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or planet; part of a cartesian theory accounting for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it.

Any of numerous species of small turbellaria belonging to vortex and allied genera.