Definitions
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 undercable-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 underpianoforte . - 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.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word whip.
Examples
-
It must mean the whip with which the Trojans scourged the Greeks, which cannot be but by a very unusual construction, or the authour must have forgotten the original of the Romans; unless _whip_ has some meaning which includes
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
-
Falstaff has said, that the _courtiers would_ whip _him with their quick wits_; but I know not that _whip_ can be used for a _scoff_ or _insult_, unless its meaning be fixed by the whole expression.
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
-
This classic rendition of Catwoman swinging a whip is an original design by artist Steve Rude and makes the perfect companion piece to Rude†™ s version of Batman in black and white.
DC Comics for February 2010 | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News 2009
-
The popularization of ghost riding the whip is a byproduct of the popularity of Bay Area music and hyphy culture in general. heh
-
The manner of sawing such timber, at the South, is by what they call a whip saw.
-
Yet instead of debating how to build a better public media system, we're stuck with a rotting commercial one that would rather help the likes of Palin whip up a frenzy and play up the false divide between left and right.
Josh Silver: Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint Take Aim at NPR Funding Josh Silver 2010
-
Yet instead of debating how to build a better public media system, we're stuck with a rotting commercial one that would rather help the likes of Palin whip up a frenzy and play up the false divide between left and right.
Josh Silver: Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint Take Aim at NPR Funding Josh Silver 2010
-
Her right hand, still raised, came down, the thin whip whishing through the air.
Chapter 22 2010
-
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who as the Democratic whip is in charge of counting the party's votes in the chamber, told reporters he was glad to see his colleague back.
-
The whip is highly detailed and molded from a semi-rigid material, a great choice, given the skinny parts that would be easily breakable if it were cast from polystone like the rest of the piece.
Collectible Review: Jean Grey as Black Queen Comiquette | Fandomania 2009
oroboros commented on the word whip
Answer to the riddle:
"At a Cambridge dinner, Arthur C. Clarke asked Clive Sinclair, 'What was the first human artifact to break the sound barrier?'"
January 22, 2010