whiplash

Etymology

It is a compound from English whip + lash.^[2][3][4][5] Etymonline records whippes lash, the flexible part of a whip, from the late 14th century.^[2] Whip is from Middle English wippen (“to flap violently”),^[2] and lash, a blow, possibly imitative, is las.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The lash of a whip: 1573, in Thomas Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry;^[3] Johnson (1755) quoted Tusser's line "Have whiplash wel knotted and cartrope inough".^[6] Merriam-Webster dates the word to about 1580.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word was used figuratively for something like the blow of a whip, as of fear or of inflation,^[4][3] and since 1850 for objects shaped like a lash, such as the vibracula of some polyzoans or a seaweed with long narrow fronds;^[3] biologists also use it for a flagellum with a long rigid base and a short thin lash.^[4][7] The injury of the neck caused by the head being jerked back and forth, as in a car crash, was called whiplash by 1955, from the idea of moving like a cracking whip;^[2][3] Dictionary.com dates this sense to 1950–55.^[8] A verb followed: to harm suddenly (1957), to move suddenly and forcefully (1963), and to cause a whiplash injury (1971).^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1573 – the lash of a whip.^[3] Etymonline has the Middle English phrase from the late 14th century.^[2]
• 1850 – an object like the lash of a whip.^[3]
• 1955 – an injury to the neck from a sudden jerk of the head.^[3][2]
• 1957 – verb, to inflict sudden harm on.^[3]
• 1963 – verb, to move suddenly and forcefully.^[3]
• 1971 – verb, to cause a whiplash injury to.^[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An injury to the neck or spine caused by a sudden jerk of the head backward or forward, as in a collision.^[9][10][3]
2. The lash of a whip, or a quick stroke like that of a whip.^[9][10][4]
3. Something that strikes like a blow from a whip: the whiplash of a sudden tax rise.^[4][3]
4. A flagellum with a long stiff base and a short thin lash.^[4]

Verb

1. To strike with or as if with a whip.^[4]
2. To jerk violently, or to cause a whiplash injury to.^[3]

Related words

• whip
• lash

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins