One picture holds this whole word: something going round and round in one spot, fast enough that the edges blur — a spinning top, leaves lifted by a passing bus, a skirt opening as a dancer turns. That single picture hands you three things at once. There is the movement (the turning), the shape you can see because of it (the blurred circle), and the feeling of the person watching or caught in it (unable to fix on anything). Every other meaning of whirl can be read as one of those three, moved somewhere new.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records the verb as Middle English whirlen, traced back to Old English hweorfan (to turn) or Old Norse hvirfla (to go round, spin), and the noun separately as Old English hwirfel, a whirlpool. So the word has been about turning from the start; the modern uses mostly move that turning somewhere new.
Wiktionary 記錄動詞 whirl 來自中古英語 whirlen，可以再往上接到古英語 hweorfan（轉）或古諾斯語 hvirfla（繞圈、旋轉）；名詞則是另一條線，來自古英語 hwirfel，意思是「漩渦」。兩條線都在講「轉」。今天的用法只是把這個轉搬到別的地方——搬進腦袋裡，或搬到一段忙碌的日子上。
Wiktionary via kaikki extract supplied in this packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:845795015 for the verb, :845810833 for the noun)
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。