Whip

subs. (colloquial).—1.  A driver, a coachman: also KNIGHT OF THE WHIP.

  1778.  SHERIDAN, The Rivals, i. 1. None of the London WHIPS … wear wigs now.

  1809–12.  EDGEWORTH, The Absentee, viii. Major Benson, who was a famous WHIP, took his seat on the box of the barouche.

  1828.  BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Living Picture of London, 27. To the practices and necessities of the coachmen and guard’s private trade, we owe the increasing number and fresh supply of hangers-on, whose first business has been the performing fetch-and-carry services for those KNIGHTS OF THE WHIP.

  1837.  DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, xiii. You’re a wery good WHIP, and can do what you like with your horses.

  1874.  M. and F. COLLINS, Frances, xlii. Julian Orchard proved his skill as a WHIP by making four screws do six miles in twenty-five minutes.

  1888.  BESANT, Fifty Years Ago, 50. This is the famous coaching baronet than whom no better WHIP has ever been seen upon the road.

  2.  (parliamentary).—A member who (unofficially) looks after the interests of his party; prob. from WHIPPER-IN [BRYCE: The WHIP’S duties are (a) to inform every member belonging to the party when an important division may be expected, and, if he sees the member in or about the House, to keep him there until the division is called; (b) to direct the members of his own party how to vote; (c) to obtain ‘pairs’ for them if they cannot be present to vote; (d) to ‘tell,’ i.e., count the members in every party division; (e) to ‘keep touch’ of opinion within the party, and convey to the leader a faithful impression of that opinion, from which the latter may judge how far he may count on the support of his whole party in any course he proposes to take.] Also (3) the call made for attendance at a division, etc.; and as verb (or TO WHIP IN, or UP).

  1836.  DICKENS, Sketches by Boz, xviii. Sir Somebody Something, when he was WHIPPER-IN for the Government, brought four men out of their beds to vote in the majority, three of whom died on their way home again.

  1882.  Pall Mall Gazette, 9 Nov. The Liberal WHIPS have issued a somewhat similar invitation. Ibid. Urgent WHIPS have been issued by both sides.

  c. 1888.  Standard [A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant]. A four-line WHIP has been issued by the Government in opposition to the second reading of Lord Dunraven’s Bill for the reform of the House of Lords.

  4.  (printers’).—A compositor quick in setting type; a TYPE-SLINGER (which also see).

  Verb (common).—1.  To surpass, beat, defeat, overcome; hence WHIPPING = defeat: e.g., to WHIP the enemy (or give them a WHIPPING), to WHIP creation, etc.

  1842.  DE QUINCEY, Philosophy of Herodotus. A man without a particle of Greek ‘WHIPPED’ … whole crowds of drones who had more Greek than they could turn to any good account.

  1892.  W. WILSON, Congressional Government. The only bond of cohesion is the caucus, which occasionally WHIPS a party together for coöperative action.

  2.  (thieves’).—To swindle.

  3.  (colloquial).—Generic for quick, smart action: e.g., to WHIP ON (UP, OFF, OUT, etc.): frequently with an idea of stealth. Also WHIP, adv. = quickly, instanter.

  1360.  Sir Gawayn [E.E.T.S.]. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 59. The words akin to the Dutch and German are … blubber … WHIP OFF.]

  1563.  FOXE, Acts and Monuments (CATTLEY), viii. 336. [I will] WHIP on my clothes.

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. WHIP OFF, c. to steal, to Drink cleaverly, to snatch, and to run away. WHIPT THROUGH the Lungs, run through the Body with a Sword. WHIPT IN at the Glaze, c. got in at the window.

  1700.  FARQUHAR, The Constant Couple, iii. 2. He WHIPS OUT his stiletto, and I whips out my bull-dog.

  1715.  CENTLIVRE, Gotham Election, i. 4. You all talk it well affore you get in, but you are no sooner chose in but WHIP! you are as proud as the devil.

  1748.  RICHARDSON, Clarissa, VIII. 267. When I came, WHIP was the key turned upon the girls.

  1837.  MARRYAT, Snarleyyow; or The Dog Fiend, xiii. Vanslyperken may run under the guns, and then WHIP the whole boiling of US OFF to the Ingies, and glad to get us, too.

  TO DRINK (or LICK) ON THE WHIP, verb. phr. (common).—To get a thrashing, to taste the whip.

  c. 1401.  Towneley Mysteries, 30.

  1576.  GASCOIGNE, The Steele Glas [ARBER], 68.

  TO WHIP THE CAT, verb. phr. (old).—1.  To pinch, to be parsimonious, mean, stingy.

  2.  (old).—To go from house to house to work: chiefly tailors’, but the practice was more or less common to all trades. Hence WHIP-CAT = a tailor: see quot. 1871.

  1857.  S. G. GOODRICH, Recollections of a Lifetime, I. 74. Twice a year … the tailor came to the house and fabricated the semi-annual stock of clothes for the male members—this being called ‘WHIPPING THE CAT.’

  1870.  JUDD, Margaret, iii. Mr. Hart … made shoes, a trade he prosecuted in an itinerating manner from house to house, ‘WHIPPING THE CAT,’ as it was termed, and drank excessively.

  1871.  DE VERE, Americanisms, 648. WHIPPING THE CAT: an old English phrase, used only by tailors and carpenters, has maintained its existence in New England, Pennsylvania, and a few other States, where it denotes the annual visit of a tailor to repair the clothes of a household. It is said to have originated in a very rough practical joke, which bears the same name in Hampshire, England, and of which, it is surmised, the tailor may have been the victim (J. R. Lowell). The simple tailors of former days liked thus to go from house to house in the rural districts, providing the families with clothing. The chief romance for the happy ‘Schneider’ was in the abundant and wholesome cheer of the farmer who employed him, and as his annual visits fell in the pudding and sausage season, he was usually crammed with that kind of ‘vegetables,’ as he facetiously called them, to his heart’s content. The only objection made to CATWHIPPING, was that it afforded no opportunity to ‘cabbage,’ and in former days this was a serious grievance. The introduction of large manufacturing establishments, low-priced ready-made clothing, and the advent of the sewing-machine, have now nearly made an end to this itinerant occupation. The terms CATWHIPPER and CATWHIPPING were often facetiously, and sometimes very irreverently, applied to other itinerant professions: even ‘Schoolmasters’—there were no ‘teachers,’ much less ‘educators,’ in those benighted days—were called CATWHIPPERS, when they boarded, as was quite usual, in turns with the parents of their scholars. Itinerating preachers also were, by the initiated, included in this category.

  1888.  St. James’s Gazette, 2 May. Mr. Hugh Haliburton dilates upon the custom of ‘WHIPPING THE CAT’—i.e., working for people at their houses, as was once the wont of Scottish tailors. A minister who fills another’s pulpit (for a consideration) is equally said to ‘flog pouss.’

  3.  (modern).—To idle on Monday; to keep St. Monday.

  4.  (common).—(a) To get tipsy: see SCREWED: also TO WHIP (JERK or SHOOT THE CAT, or TO CAT): also (b) = to vomit. Hence WHIPCAT, adj. = drunken (FLORIO), WHIPCAN (which see) = a toper: cf. verb, sense 3.

  1582.  STANYHURST, Æneis, iii. 367. With WHIP CAT bowling they kept a myrry carousing.

  1609.  ARMIN, The Historie of the Two Maides of More-clacke (1880), 70. Ile baste their bellies and their lippes till we haue IERK’T THE CAT with our three WHIPPES.

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), A Brood of Cormorants [Works, III. 5. 1].

  1830.  MARRYAT, The King’s Own, xxxii. I’m cursedly inclined to SHOOT THE CAT.

  4.  (old).—To indulge in practical jokes: spec. (B. E. and GROSE) ‘a trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength; by laying a wager with them, that they may be PULLED THROUGH A POND BY A CAT; the bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a pack-thread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these, on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.’

  1614.  JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, i. 4. I’ll be DRAWN WITH A GOOD GIB CAT THROUGH THE GREAT POND at home.

  TO WHIP THE DEVIL ROUND THE STUMP, verb. phr. (American).—To make false excuses to one’s self and others for doing what one likes, to equivocate, to say, pretend, or do one thing, and mean, or act differently.

  1857.  New York Evening Post [BARTLETT]. Jones, you’re a clever fellow, but … there is a want of candor now, I perceive, in the statement of your affairs … you are WHIPPING THE DEVIL AROUND THE STUMP: I see his foot.