Other forms: whipped, whipping, whips
To whip cream is to beat it fast — a whisk going round and round the bowl until the liquid thickens and stands up in soft peaks. Egg whites whipped stiff for a meringue, a spoonful of whipped cream on hot chocolate, a fork whipping two eggs before they hit the pan.
Outside the kitchen a whip is a length of leather or cord on a handle, and to whip a person or an animal is to strike them with it. Whip also means to move something fast and suddenly: he whipped out his phone, she whipped the cloth off the table. Whip up covers two things — making food in a hurry, and stirring a crowd into anger or excitement. In British and Australian politics the whip is the MP whose job is keeping party members voting together, a name taken from fox hunting. And whipped cream is fixed: nobody says whisked cream.
1verbwhipTo beat cream, eggs or a sauce quickly with a whisk or fork until it thickens and fills with air.
“Whip the cream until it holds its shape, then fold in the sugar.”
Patternwhip + noun (cream, egg whites) · whipped cream · whip until stiff · whip sth up
2verbstrikeTo strike a person or animal with a whip.
“In the old navy, sailors were whipped for stealing.”
3nounlongA long strip of leather or cord fixed to a handle, used for striking or for driving animals on.
“The driver kept the whip in its holder and never touched the horses with it.”
4verbmoveTo move something, or move yourself, fast and suddenly.
“She whipped the letter out of his hand before he could read it.”
5nounmemberA member of a political party whose job is making sure other members attend and vote with the party.
“The whip warned that anyone voting against would lose the party's backing.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
WHIP → your hand flies round like a WHIP
Your hand moves as fast as a whip, round and round the bowl, until the egg whites are thick and full of air.
Whip came into Middle English as whippen, 'to flap violently', borrowed from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German wippen, 'to swing, leap, oscillate', from a Proto-Germanic word for moving back and forth and behind that a Proto-Indo-European root *weyp-, 'to shake, to swing'. The wh- at the front is not etymological at all; it was added because it sounds like the thing, the way whack and whoosh do. The political whip comes from somewhere else entirely — the eighteenth-century hunting whipper-in, who kept the hounds from wandering off.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyp- — to shake; to swing
Proto-Germanic
*wippōną — to move back and forth
Middle Low German
wippen — to move quickly
Middle Dutch
wippen — to swing, leap, dance, oscillate
Middle English
whippen
English, today
whip
Built from
From Middle English whippen, wippen (“to flap violently”), from Middle Dutch wippen (“to swing, leap, dance, oscillate”) and Middle Low German wippen (“to move quickly”), from Proto-Germanic wippōną (“to move back and forth”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European weyp- (“to shake; to swing”). (See Swedish vippa and Danish vippe (“to shake”)). The unetymological wh- is probably expressive of the sound of a whip; compare the same development in whisk and onomatopoeias such as whack and whoosh. The political senses are from whipper-in (“huntsman who keeps the hounds from wandering”), from 18th-century hunting terminology.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA