1.  A whip used in driving a coach.

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1833.  J. Rennie, Alph. Angling, 65. The best lines … run taper like the lash of a coach-whip.

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  2.  fig. A long thin strip; pl. shreds, tatters.

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1781.  Archer, in Naval Chron., XI. 288. The Sails began to fly … into coach whips.

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  3.  Naut. ‘The pendant’ (Adm. Smyth).

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  4.  attrib., as coa·ch-whip bi·rd, snake (see quots.).

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1736.  Mortimer, in Phil. Trans., XXXIX. 256. The Coach-whip Snake; so called from its being very long and slender like a Coach-whip.

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1796.  Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 219. The Coach whip snake … is 6 or 7 feet long, and very slender and active.

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1884.  Cassell’s Fam. Mag., April, 271/2. The ‘coach-whip’ bird … has a loud, full note, ending sharply like the crack of a whip.

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