tourbillon

Borrowed from French tourbillon (“whirlwind”)

tourbillon (plural tourbillons)

1. A rotating frame, containing the escapement of a clock or watch, that attempts to compensate for the effects of gravity.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 514:

     Time was vulnerable to the force of gravity. So Breguet came up with the tourbillon, which isolated the balance wheel and escarpment off on a little platform of their own

2. A whirlwind.
3. A kind of firework that gyrates in the air.
4. Anything with a spiral movement.

• bunitrolol

From Old French torbeil + -on.

• IPA^(key): /tuʁ.bi.jɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

tourbillon m (plural tourbillons)

1. whirlwind
2. eddy, whirlpool
3. (physics) vortex
4. (figuratively) whirl, whirlwind, maelstrom
5. tourbillon

• tourbillonnaire
• tourbillonner

• “tourbillon” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).