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
Andy Andersen, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2024
How — amid this perpetual maelstrom of things to like, favorite, and urgently need to fix — are we meant to be moral?
—David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 28 June 2024
The lack of federal regulation around generative AI amid its rapid proliferation has contributed to a growing maelstrom of confusion and criticism around what datasets AI companies are using to train their models.
—Angela Yang, NBC News, 22 Oct. 2024
All this has hurled the 19 San Jose State volleyball players into the maelstrom, positioning them between friendship, teamwork and their own senses of fairness as drama swirls around them.
—Julia Prodis Sulek, The Mercury News, 6 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Maelstrom.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maelstrom. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.
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maelstrom
noun
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