vertiginous
adjective
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It is generally necessary to avoid crowded rooms and the vertiginous influence of the dance, one 19th-century medical work advised. We're not sure what condition this advice was aimed at, but it may well have been "vertigo," a disordered state characterized by whirling dizziness. "Vertiginous," from the Latin vertiginosus, is the adjective form of "vertigo," which in Latin means a turning or whirling action. Both words descend from the Latin verb vertere, meaning "to turn." ("Vertiginous" and "vertigo" are just two of an almost dizzying array of "vertere" offspring, from "adverse" to "vortex.") The "dizzying" sense of "vertiginous" is often used figuratively, as in "vertiginous medical discoveries may drastically change life in the 21st century."
Examples of vertiginous in a Sentence
Tara Anne Dalbow, Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2025
This vertiginous rise was fueled by an explosion in demand during the pandemic, encouraged in part by low mortgage rates, and a historic lack of supply in the U.S. housing market.
—Tom Rogers, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Apr. 2025
For the actor, what transpires is not an escape from the motherhood plot, but a vertiginous, possibly delusional slide into it.
—Jordan Kisner, The Atlantic, 4 Apr. 2025
The tech giant plans to ship more iPhones to the U.S. from India as a short-term way to offset the newly vertiginous levies on goods from China, according to The Wall Street Journal.
—Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Vertiginous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vertiginous. Accessed 20 May. 2025.
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vertiginous
adjective
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