whip-top

M. fissurata is like a whip-top in shape, the root being thick and woody, and the tubercles arranged in a thick layer, spreading from the centre, rosette-like.

Cactus Culture for Amateurs Being Descriptions of the Various Cactuses Grown in This Country, With Full and Practical Instructions for Their Successful Cultivation W. Watson

Playing whip-top alone soon gets to be monotonous, but where there are two a "fight" can be arranged for.

Healthful Sports for Boys Alfred Rochefort

The barbarous custom of whipping martyrs at the stake is perpetuated by the game of whip-top.

A History of Nursery Rhymes Percy B. Green

As the brother of De Quincey said, when proposing to stand on the ceiling, head downwards, and be spun there like a whip-top, thus overcoming the attraction of gravitation by the mere rapidity of revolution, "If you can keep it up for an instant, you can keep it up all day."

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 Various

Capable both of virtuous resolutions and of fits of apathetic obstinacy, His Majesty is usually the whip-top of competitive advisers; and his conduct is so unstable as to wear at times an appearance of treachery which would surprise himself if he could see it.

A Footnote to History Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

Many wives give up their homes for these public residences so that they may give their entire time to operas, theatres, balls, receptions and levees, and they are in a perpetual whirl, like a whip-top, spinning round and round and round very prettily until it loses its equipoise and shoots off into a tangent.

The Wedding Ring A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating Matrimony 1867

At last, he got into the ripps off of Johnston's pint, and they wheeled him right round and round like a whip-top.

The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Volume 02 Thomas Chandler Haliburton 1830

At last, he got into the ripps off of Johnston's pint, and they wheeled him right round and round like a whip-top.

The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Complete Thomas Chandler Haliburton 1830

The resurrectionists will get her body, and the primary class in the other world will play whip-top with the rest of her. "

Bohemian Days Three American Tales George Alfred Townsend 1877