wheel vs whirl

wheel

verb
  • To change direction quickly, turn, pivot, whirl, wheel around. 

  • To roll along on wheels. 

  • To cause to change direction quickly, turn. 

  • To travel around in large circles, particularly in the air. 

  • To put into a rotatory motion; to cause to turn or revolve; to make or perform in a circle. 

  • To transport something or someone using any wheeled mechanism, such as a wheelchair. 

noun
  • A wheelrim. 

  • A potter's wheel. 

  • A round portion of cheese. 

  • The lowest straight in poker: ace, 2, 3, 4, 5. 

  • A Catherine wheel firework. 

  • A recurring or cyclical course of events. 

  • A turn or revolution; rotation; compass. 

  • The instrument attached to the rudder by which a vessel is steered. 

  • A manoeuvre in marching in which the marchers turn in a curving fashion to right or left so that the order of marchers does not change. 

  • A person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel. 

  • The breaking wheel, an old instrument of torture. 

  • A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines. 

  • A spinning wheel. 

  • A steering wheel and its implied control of a vehicle. 

whirl

verb
  • To rotate, revolve, spin or turn rapidly. 

  • To make something or someone whirl. 

  • To have a sensation of spinning or reeling. 

  • To remove or carry quickly with, or as with, a revolving motion; to snatch. 

noun
  • (usually following “give”) A brief experiment or trial. 

  • Something that whirls. 

  • A rapid series of events. 

  • Dizziness or giddiness. 

  • An act of whirling. 

  • A confused tumult. 

How often have the words wheel and whirl occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )