whip

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A long thin piece of leather or rope with a handle, used for hitting animals or people.

   The rider cracked his whip to make the horse go faster.

2. 2
   verb

   To hit a person or animal with a whip.

   It is cruel to whip a tired horse.

3. 3
   verb

   To beat cream, eggs, or other food quickly until it becomes thick or stiff.

   Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.

4. 4
   verb

   To move or pull something quickly and suddenly.

   She whipped out her phone to take a photo.

From Middle English whippen, wippen (“to flap violently”), from Middle Dutch wippen (“to swing, leap, dance, oscillate”) and Middle Low German wippen (“to move quickly”), from Proto-Germanic *wipjaną (“to move back and forth”). Some similarity to Sanskrit root वेप् (vep, “shake, flourish”), Latin vibrō (“to shake”). (See Swedish vippa and Danish vippe (“to shake”)). The unetymological wh- is probably expressive of the sound of a whip; compare the same development in whisk and onomatopoeias such as whack and whoosh. The political senses are from whipper-in (“huntsman who keeps the hounds from w…

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