Also 5 turbilloun, 8 -billion. [a. F. tourbillon whirlwind, in OF. torbeillon (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), torbillon, app., from the sense, an irregular derivative of L. turbo, -inem ‘whirlwind’; though the form seems to connect it with vulgar L. turbēla, turbella ‘bustle, stir,’ deriv. of turba crowd. See Hatz.-Darm., Littré, and Scheler.]
1. A whirlwind; a whirling storm. Also fig. rare. ? Obs.
c. 1477. Caxton, Jason, 57. A meruaillous turbilloun of winde roose in the see.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., I. xi. 13. A wind called … vulgarly Tourbillon or whirlewinde.
1751. Eliza Heywood, Betsy Thoughtless, III. 138. With the more violence those tourbillions of the mind rage for a while, the sooner they subside.
1819. W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d (1827), 57. A scharp-ee’d man, whase sicht was clear, Beneath the stowry tourbillon Micht see [etc.].
2. transf. A whirling mass or system; a vortex; a whirl. Also fig. Obs. exc. as French.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 472, ¶ 4. Each of them [the fixed stars] is a Sun moving on its own Axis in the Centre of its own Vortex or Turbillion.
1753. Chesterf., Lett., 26 Nov. I am very glad, that you are whirled in that tourbillon of pleasures.
1779. H. Walpole, Lett. to C’tess Ossory, 27 Oct. The tourbillon of Ranelagh surrounds you.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, iii. All things were engaged in the tourbillon, of which she formed the pivot and centre.
3. A kind of firework that spins as it rises, describing a spiral.
1765. R. Jones, Fireworks, IV. 121. When you fire tourbillons, lay them on a smooth table, with their sticks downwards.
1842. G. Francis, Dict. Arts, etc., s.v., Fire will issue from four holes; that from the two lower holes will drive the tourbillion into the air, and that from the side holes will spin it round.
1873. E. Spon, Workshop Receipts, Ser. I. 135/1. The tourbillon is a species of firework very ingeniously contrived to represent a spiral column of fire.
4. (See quot.)
1884. F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 266. Tourbillon … a carriage in which the escapement of a watch is filled so that it revolves round the fourth wheel. The idea of the tourbillon … is to get rid of position errors.
