whisk

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   whip with or as if with a wire whisk

   Whisk the eggs.

2. 2
   verb

   move somewhere quickly

   The President was whisked away in a limo.

3. 3
   verb

   move quickly and nimbly

   I whisked into the house with the groceries.

From Middle English whisk, borrowed from Old Norse visk, from Proto-Germanic *wiskaz, *wiskō (“bundle of hay, wisp”), from Proto-Indo-European *weys-. Cognates Cognate with Danish visk, Dutch wis, German Wisch, Latin virga (“rod, switch”), viscus (“entrails”), Lithuanian vizgéti (“to tremble”), Czech věchet (“wisp of straw”), Sanskrit वेष्क (veṣka, “noose”). Compare also Old English wiscian (“to plait”), granwisc (“awn”). The unetymological wh- is probably expressive of the sound; compare the same development in whip and onomatopoeias such as whack and whoosh.

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