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.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Whip entered Middle English from old German and Dutch wippen, “to swing, leap, or dance.” The political sense developed from hunting: a whipper-in used a whip to keep hounds together, and the shortened title whip was applied to party officials by 1850.

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…

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary