whip

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To strike with a strap or rod; lash.
• intransitive verb To afflict, castigate, or reprove severely.
• intransitive verb To strike or affect in a manner similar to whipping or lashing.
• intransitive verb To arouse or excite, especially with words.
• intransitive verb To beat (cream or eggs, for example) into a froth or foam.
• intransitive verb Informal To snatch, pull, or remove in a sudden manner.
• intransitive verb To sew with a loose overcast or overhand stitch.
• intransitive verb To wrap or bind (a rope, for example) with twine to prevent unraveling or fraying.
• intransitive verb Nautical To hoist by means of a rope passing through an overhead pulley.
• intransitive verb Informal To defeat soundly.
• intransitive verb To move in a sudden, quick manner; dart.
• intransitive verb To move in a manner similar to a whip; thrash or snap about.
• noun An instrument, either a flexible rod or a flexible thong or lash attached to a handle, used for driving animals or administering corporal punishment.
• noun A whipping or lashing motion or stroke; a whiplash.
• noun A blow, wound, or cut made by whipping.
• noun Something, such as a long radio antenna on a motor vehicle, that is similar to a whip in form or flexibility.
• noun Sports Flexibility, as in the shaft of a golf club.
• noun Sports A whipper-in.
• noun A member of a legislative body, such as the US Congress or the British Parliament, charged by his or her party with enforcing party discipline and ensuring attendance.
• noun A call issued to party members in a lawmaking body to ensure attendance at a particular time.
• noun A dessert made of sugar and stiffly beaten egg whites or cream, often with fruit or fruit flavoring.
• noun An arm on a windmill.
• noun Nautical A hoist consisting of a single rope passing through an overhead pulley.
• noun A ride in an amusement park, consisting of small cars that move in a rapid, whipping motion along an oval track.
• idiom (whip into shape) To bring to a specified state or condition, vigorously and often forcefully.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An instrument for flagellation, whether in driving animals or in punishing human beings; a scourge.
• noun One who handles a whip, as in driving a coach or carriage; a driver: as, an expert whip.
• noun A whipper-in.
• noun In English parliamentary usage, a member who performs certain non-official but important duties in looking after the interests of his party, especially the securing of the attendance of as many members as possible at important divisions: as, the Liberal whip; the Conservative whip. See the quotation.
• noun A call made upon the members of a party to be in their places at a certain time: as, both parties have issued a rigorous whip in. view of the expected division.
• noun A contrivance for hoisting, consisting of a rope and pulley and usually a snatch-block, and worked by one or more horses which in hoisting walk a way from thething hoisted. In mining usually called whip-and-derry. See cut under cable-laid.
• noun One of the radii or arms of a windmill, to which the sails are attached; also, the length of the arm reckoned from the shaft.
• noun In angling, the leader of an angler's cast with its flies attached.
• noun A vibrating spring used as an electric cir cuitcloser for testing capacity.
• noun A slender rod or flexible pole used instead of stakes to mark the bounds of oyster-beds.
• noun The common black swift, Cypselus apus.
• noun A preparation of cream, eggs, etc., beaten to a froth.
• noun See the extract.
• noun In pianoforte-making, the crosspiece at the top of an action-extension which bears and operates both the hammer-and the damper-action. Also called jack-whip. See the cut under pianoforte.
• noun A light line used in marine life-saving apparatus, run as an endless circuit from the shore around a sheave on the vessel and back to the shore. The breeches-buoy is operated by such a whip.
• noun One who operates a whip-hoisting or whip-conveying line.
• With a sudden change; at once; quick.
• To move suddenly and nimbly; start (in, out, away, etc.) with sudden quickness: as, to whip round the corner and disappear.
• In angling, to cast the line or the fly by means of the rod with a motion like that of using a whip; make a cast.
• To move, throw, put, pull, carry, or the like, with a sudden, quick motion; snatch: usually followed by some preposition or adverb, as away, from, in, into, off, on, out, up, etc.: as, to whip out a sword or a revolver.
• To overlay, as a cord, rope, etc., with a cord, twine, or thread going round and round it; inwrap; seize; serve with twine, thread, or the like wound closely and tightly round and round: generally with about, around, over, etc.