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whiplash

UK/ˈwɪpˌlæʃ/US/ˈwɪpˌlæʃ/
nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Whiplash is a neck injury caused by the head snapping back and then forward in a crash. Soft tissue, not bone.

It is the commonest injury in a rear-end collision and it often does not hurt until the following day, which surprises people. Britain reformed the law on whiplash claims after the number of them became implausible, which was unfair on the many people genuinely injured. The word comes from the crack of a whip, which is exactly the movement the neck makes.

Definitions of whiplash

  1. 1nounwhiplashA neck injury caused by a sudden jerking of the head.C2

    “He was off work for a month with whiplash.”

Where it comes from

From whip + lash.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 17 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

whiplash in the wild

  • Before the invention of the car, whiplash injuries were called "railway spine" as they were noted mostly in connection with train collisions.

    Whiplash (medicine)

  • The number of whiplash injuries has since risen sharply due to rear-end motor vehicle collisions.

    Whiplash (medicine)

  • Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS) is a system to protect against automotive whiplash injuries introduced by Volvo in 1998.

    WHIPS

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.