Dictionary

whipstock en · NOUN

Etymology

From whip + stock.

Meanings

1. The stock, or rigid handle, of a whip.
   • […] cowherds and carters had goads and whipstocks of quicken-wood, to counteract the witch who could bring the team to a standstill, whence the old sayings: Woe to the lad Without a rowan-tree gad, and: If your whipstock’s made of rown You may ride through any town. 1913, Elizabeth Mary Wright, chapter 14, in Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore, Oxford University Press, page 234:
   • He liked to have [the axe-helve] slender as a whipstock, Free from the least knot, equal to the strain Of bending like a sword across the knee. 1917 September, Robert Frost, “The Axe-Helve”, in The Atlantic Monthly, page 339:
   • He had need mean better than his outward show Can any way speak in his just commend; For by his rusty outside he appears To have practised more the whipstock than the lance. c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:
   • Jerry gave one terror-stricken look, wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, disappeared behind a convenient tree. 1895, Kate Douglas Wiggin, “The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry”, in The Village Watch-Tower, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 216:
2. (broadly) The driver of a carriage.

Forms

Synonyms

whipstick

Translations (1)

pl biczysko (Translations)