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"He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea." This use of eddy (from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens) reflects a sense that has been swirling around English for centuries; the earliest documented uses of eddy to refer to water currents goes back to the 1400s. Etymologists trace the word to the Scottish dialect term ydy, which had the same basic meaning as our modern term. The verb form of eddy meaning "to move in or cause to move in an eddy or in the manner of an eddy" (as in "the waves eddied against the pier") appeared a few centuries after the noun.
Examples of eddy in a Sentence
Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 23 Feb. 2026
Randolph and Zeta-Jones fare a bit better, while Ortega is mostly stuck in the eddy of repetitive behavior written for her thin character.
—Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 25 Jan. 2026
Cressida Leyshon, New Yorker, 23 Nov. 2025
Moses’s book eddies around with the energy of someone reporting back from a very long and strange evening clicking through Wikipedia links, enjoying every chance to add a tangent.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 28 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for eddy
Cite this Entry
“Eddy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eddy. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
eddy
1 of 2 noun
eddy
2 of 2 verbBiographical Definition
Eddy
biographical name
