whipstock

English

Etymology

whip +‎ stock

Noun

whipstock (plural whipstocks)

  1. The stock (rigid handle) of a whip.
    • c. 1608, William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act II, Scene 2,
      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.
    • 1895, Kate Douglas Wiggin, “The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry” in The Village Watch-Tower, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 216,
      Jerry gave one terror-stricken look, wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, disappeared behind a convenient tree.
    • 1913, Elizabeth Mary Wright, Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore, Oxford University Press, Chapter 14, p. 234,
      […] 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.
    • 1917, Robert Frost, “The Axe-Helve” in The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1917, p. 339,
      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.

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