maelstrom
noun
Harper's
Did you know?
The original Maelstrom, also known as the Mostenstraumen or Moskstraumen, is a channel located off the northwest coast of Norway that has dangerous tidal currents. English speakers became familiar with its (often exaggerated) perils through literature—Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story called “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” and Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has—spoiler alert—a maelstrom at its climax. The English word arrived by way of the Dutch word maelstrom, which today is spelled maalstroom. (The Dutch word combines the verb malen, meaning “to grind,” and the noun strom, “stream.”) English speakers have applied the word to any powerful whirlpool since the 16th century, and by the 19th century they’d begun to apply it figuratively to things or situations resembling such maelstroms in turbulence or confusion.
Examples of maelstrom in a Sentence
Megan Marshall
september 25, Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
Carollo’s latest stint in office has brought about a maelstrom of litigation, including lawsuits filed by the Ball & Chain nightclub operators.
—Miami Herald, 20 Sep. 2025
Throughout the screeners provided for review, Bradley Jackson’s investigation into that chemical plant alternates between being the most important thing to ever happen and a C-plot among the maelstrom of its characters’ interpersonal drama.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 17 Sep. 2025
Anyier Anei is Ada, a newbie model from South Sudan by way of Kenya, wide-eyed and hungry as she’s tossed into a maelstrom of haughty men and clubgoing sisters in strutting.
—Richard Lawson, IndieWire, 7 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Maelstrom.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maelstrom. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
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maelstrom
noun
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