I put up a new wirlygig. Some days I feel as though I am viewing life from inside of one. Then I started to wonder about the history of the word and stuff.
Wikipedia had this to say....
The word whirligig derives from two Middle English words: whirlen (to whirl) and gigg (top),[9] or literally "to whirl a top". The Oxford English Dictionary cites the Promptorium parvulorum (c. 1440), the first English-Latin dictionary, which contains the definition "Whyrlegyge, chyldys game, Latin: giracu-lum".[10] It is therefore likely the 1440 version of whirligig referred to a spinning toy or toys.
Origins and evolution
See also: Bamboo-copter
Wooden rooster whirligig
The origin of whirligigs is unknown. Both farmers and sailors use weather vanes, and the assumption is one or both groups are probably the originators. By 400 BC the bamboo-copter or dragon butterfly, a helicopter-like rotor launched by rolling a stick, had been invented in China.[7] Wind-driven whirligigs were technically possible by 700 AD when the Sasanian Empire began using windmills to lift water for irrigation. The weather vane, which dates to the Sumerians in 1600–1800 BC, is the second component of wind-driven whirligigs.[11]
In early Chinese, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman civilizations there are ample examples of weathervanes but as yet, no examples of a propeller-driven whirligig have been found. A grinding corn doll of ancient Egyptian origin demonstrates that string-operated whirligigs were already in use by 100 BC.[12]
The first known visual representation of a European whirligig is contained in a medieval tapestry that depicts children playing with a whirligig, consisting of a hobby horse on one end of a stick and a four-blade propeller at the other end.
