whip

WIP/wɪp/

33 meanings of whip

1
nouncountable
A lash or flexible instrument, such as a braided leather thong, used to strike a person or animal as corporal punishment or torture.
The overseer cracked his whip across the man's back.
Floggings with a whip were once a common punishment aboard naval ships.
Similarlash, scourge
2
nouncountable
A lash; a pliant, flexible instrument, such as a cane rod or a braided leather thong, used to make a sharp cracking sound for directing or herding animals.
The driver snapped his whip above the oxen without ever touching them.
Stockmen on the cattle drive carried whips of plaited rawhide.
Similarlash
Note
Every sense of the word starts from motion rather than from striking. Middle English whippen meant "to flap violently." It came from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German wippen, "to swing, leap, move quickly," and ultimately from a Germanic verb for moving back and forth. The crack that turns a herd is the lash's own snapping movement. The Dutch wippen survives unchanged as a rocking part in piano actions.
3
verbtransitive
To strike a person or animal with a whip.
The coachman whipped the horses up the steep grade.
Under the new racing rules, jockeys may whip a horse no more than six times.
Similarlash, flog, beat, thrash
4
verbtransitive
To mix something, especially food, in a rapid motion that incorporates air.
Whip the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks.
The barista whips the milk into a dense foam for each cappuccino.
Similarwhisk, beat
5
noununcountable
Cream that has been beaten until light and fluffy.
The barista crowned the mocha with a generous swirl of whip.
Hold the whip on my sundae, please.
Note
A clipping of whipped cream, from the kitchen verb. It behaves as an uncountable noun: you add some whip or hold the whip, but you never ask for a whip. It belongs to the counter and the café rather than to the recipe book.
6
nouncountable
A member of a political party responsible for enforcing party discipline and ensuring that members vote according to the party's positions.
The majority whip spent the morning rounding up votes for the budget bill.
After the rebellion, several senators faced calls from the whip's office.
Note
Parliaments have a whole hierarchy of these officers. The common titles are party whip, chief whip and deputy chief whip, and Chief Whip is capitalized when it names the office itself. The word is borrowed from the hunt servant who keeps hounds in line. The job is persuasion with consequences, often delivered face to face before a vote.
7
verbintransitive
To move very fast.
Taxis whip around the traffic circle at alarming speeds.
She whipped down the stairs when the doorbell rang.
Similarrace, dash, zip, zoom, whiz
Note
The subject moves itself, and a direction word nearly always follows: up a tree, upstairs, through the valley. In Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde (1886), the figure "whipped upstairs into the cabinet," and L'Estrange's fable of 1692 has a traveler who "whips up a tree." The word suggests a sudden dart rather than sustained speed.
8
verbtransitive
To move something very fast; often used with up, out, or similar words.
She whipped a notebook out of her bag and started writing.
The valet will whip your car around to the front in two minutes.
Similarwhisk, snatch, pull, yank
Note
Something is snatched into view or out of reach, usually with out or up. Horace Walpole in 1742 has a man who "whips out his pocketbook every moment." Whip out still goes naturally with phones, notebooks and wallets: anything produced suddenly from a pocket or bag.
9
nouncountable
A blow delivered with a whip.
A single whip across the flank sent the startled horse bolting.
The old sailor still bore scars from the whips he had received at sea.
Similarlash, stroke
Note
Here the instrument becomes a single stroke, and it is counted like any other blow. A rider gives a horse a whip just as he gives it a spur, as in The Atheneum of 1832: Kit "gave his horse a whip and a spur." The phrasing treats the stroke as a nudge to go faster rather than as punishment.
10
verbtransitive
To strike a person or thing with any flexible object.
She whipped the dusty rug with a thin bamboo cane.
Campers learn never to whip each other with branches around the fire.
Similarbeat, strike, lash, thrash

11
verbtransitive
To urge or drive someone into action or obedience.
The foreman whipped his crew into finishing the bridge ahead of schedule.
New drill instructors must whip undisciplined recruits into obedience within weeks.
Similardrive, goad, spur, push
Note
The figurative goad usually comes with a destination: you whip someone into shape, into line, or into action. The into phrase is what keeps this from sounding like literal beating. Without it, "he whipped the department" reads oddly violent.
12
verbintransitive
To snap or lash back and forth like a whip.
Loose halyards whipped against the mast all night in the gale.
Power lines whip violently during hurricanes, sometimes snapping under the strain.
Similarlash, thrash, flail, flap, snap
13
verbtransitive
To send an object flying very fast, by throwing or kicking it.
The shortstop whipped the ball to first base for the final out.
Kids at the lake whip flat stones across the water to make them skip.
Similarthrow, hurl, fling, chuck, toss
Note
Fling and hurl stress force, but whip adds a snap of the arm or foot, and often spin. In BBC football commentary, Taylor "whipped a fine curling effort over Petr Cech's bar." That is the typical use: a fast, bending ball rather than a heavy one.
14
nouncountable
A sudden lashing motion; a thrashing about.
The crocodile stunned its prey with a single whip of its tail.
A sharp whip of the fishing rod sent the line far across the river.
Similarlash, flick, snap, swish
15
verbfigurativelytransitive
To lash someone with sarcasm, abuse, or harsh criticism.
The reviewer whipped the novel mercilessly in Sunday's column.
Talk show hosts whip their guests with sarcasm to get a reaction.
Similarsavage, lash, slam, maul, lambaste
Oppositepraise
Note
The lash becomes the tongue. Shakespeare already uses it in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where characters fear being whipped "with their fine wits." The with phrase names the weapon: sarcasm, wit, criticism.
16
nouncountable
A personal motor vehicle of any make or model, including motorcycles but not public transportation.
He pulled up to the party in a brand-new whip with tinted windows.
She spent the whole weekend washing and waxing her whip.
Similarride, car, wheels
Note
This is street vocabulary from African-American Vernacular English, and it also runs through multicultural urban speech. Stormzy uses it in "Shut Up" (2015), once for a little red car bought as a gift and again for a big one parked underground. It covers motorcycles as well as cars, but never a bus or train. Ride is the closest everyday equivalent.
17
verbtransitive
To compel a legislator to vote in line with their party's official position.
Senior figures whipped wavering members into supporting the controversial bill.
The party chose not to whip its representatives, allowing a free vote on the issue.
Note
The verb that goes with the party enforcer, and it often appears in the passive: members are whipped to vote a certain way. Its object is a person or a vote, never a policy. It differs from general urging because a party structure stands behind the pressure.
18
verbslangtransitive
To defeat an opponent soundly, as in a contest, game, or competition.
The home team whipped their rivals by thirty points.
He's convinced he can whip any challenger at arm wrestling.
Similarbeat, thrash, trounce, crush, hammer
Note
Slang for a thorough, lopsided win, and at home in sports talk and games among friends. Edward Keating's The Joy of Ex (2008) has someone whipped at pool without even getting a shot. The word implies the loser barely competed. For a close result, use beat. In formal reporting, defeat is the safer choice.
19
noununcountable
Flexible, springy suppleness, as of the shaft of a golf club or a fishing rod.
Golfers with slower swings often prefer shafts with more whip.
The vaulter's pole stores energy in its whip and releases it at the top of the jump.
Similarflex, springiness, give
20
verbtransitive
To thresh; to beat grain out of its husks or stalks by striking it.
Before machines, workers would whip sheaves of barley against a stone floor.
She whipped the rice stalks over the edge of a basket to free the kernels.
Similarthresh, flail, beat
21
nounUKcountablewith the
A document distributed weekly to members of Parliament by party whips, informing them of upcoming parliamentary votes.
The whip marked Tuesday's vote with three underlines, signalling that attendance was mandatory.
New MPs quickly learn to read the whip before planning travel back to their constituencies.
Note
In British parliamentary life this whip is a sheet of paper, and it nearly always takes the definite article: an MP reads the whip each week. The officers who send it share its name. Context separates them. A whip chases votes, while the whip on the desk is the list of votes being chased.
22
nounUKuncountable
The standing of a member of Parliament within their parliamentary party, which the party can withdraw as a disciplinary measure.
Twenty-one MPs had the whip withdrawn after rebelling on the key vote.
Sitting as an independent, he hoped the whip would be restored before the next election.
Note
Membership in a party's parliamentary group is spoken of as something an MP holds and can lose. The verbs to use are withdraw, strip of, restore and give back: "stripped of the whip," "the whip would be restored." An MP without it sits as an independent. This is a British usage, and one that headline writers rely on.
23
verbtransitive or intransitive
To fish a stream or other body of water by making repeated casts over it.
Anglers whip the pools below the falls when the trout are rising.
She whipped the shoreline for an hour before a bass finally struck.
Similarfish
Note
The angler's verb can take the water as its object. Emerson, in Adirondac (1858), writes of "whipping its rough surface for a trout." It can also stand alone, as in "he whipped all afternoon." The for phrase names the fish being sought.
24
verbtransitive
To bind the end of a rope tightly with twine to keep it from fraying or unraveling.
Before stowing the new line, she whipped both ends with waxed twine.
Crews whip every working line aboard so the strands stay tightly laid.
Note
The binding itself is called a whipping, and a rope's end is said to be whipped. Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises (1677–1683) spells the past tense whipt, describing a string "firmly whipt about with small Gut." Small stuff is the sailor's term for light twine or cord.
25
verbtransitive
To sew lightly with overcast stitches; specifically, to gather fabric by loosely overcasting a rolled edge and drawing up the thread.
She whipped the rolled edge of the ruffle and drew up the thread to gather it.
Seamstresses whip lace onto a garment's edge with nearly invisible stitches.
Similarovercast, oversew
Note
A needlework term with a long history. John Gay's Trivia (1716) pictures idle needles in "half-whipped muslin." The object is usually a piece of the garment: you whip a ruffle, an edge or a hem.
26
noun
A huntsman's assistant responsible for keeping the pack of hounds together; a whipper-in.
27
noun
A coach driver; a coachman, in the era of horse-drawn travel.
28
noun
A tackle in which a rope runs through a single block to gain a two-to-one mechanical advantage.
29
verb
To hoist a load by means of a rope led through a single block.
30
noun
A maneuver in which one skater transfers momentum to another, slinging a teammate forward to boost their speed.
31
noun
A springy metal contact that completes a circuit in certain electrical equipment.
32
noun
Another name for the wippen, a pivoting lever in some piano actions that passes the key's motion on toward the hammer.
33
verb
In skating, to shift momentum between skaters, as when one grabs a teammate and slings them forward.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English whippen or wippen ("to flap violently"), from Middle Dutch wippen ("to swing, leap, oscillate") and Middle Low German wippen ("to move quickly"), going back to Proto-Germanic *wipjaną ("to move back and forth"); there is some similarity to Sanskrit वेप् (vep, "shake") and Latin vibrō ("I shake"). The unetymological wh- probably imitates the sound of a whip, like in whisk, whack, and whoosh. The political senses come from whipper-in, 18th-century hunting terminology for the huntsman who kept the hounds from wandering.