swirling
n.— «While they may not return immediately, they will return to us over a period of time. And by us it may not necessarily be Rio Salado. It could be any of our sister colleges or the public or private universities in the area. They become what we call swirling students. So we no longer have the student who is loyal just to one institution, but the student who kind of shops around for what it is they’re looking for at the moment.» —“Analysis: Purposes of a college education” by Linda Thor NPR: Talk of the Nation May 8, 2002. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...