1892. W. Wilson, Cong. Govt. The only bond of cohesion is the caucus, which occasionally whips a party together for co-operative action.
2. (thieves').—To swindle.
3. (colloquial).—Generic for quick, smart action: e.g. to whip on (up, off, out, etc.): frequently with an idea of stealth. Also whip, adv. = quickly, instanter.
1360. Sir Gawayn [E.E.T.S.]. [Oliphant, New Eng., i. 59. The words akin to the Dutch and German are . . . blubber . . . whip off.]
1563. Foxe, Acts and Monuments (Cattley), viii. 336. [I will] whip on my clothes.
c. 1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Whip off, c. to steal, to Drink cleaverly, to snatch, and to run away. Whipt through the Lungs, run through the Body with a Sword. Whipt in at the Glaze, c. got in at the window.
1700. Farquhar, Constant Couple, iii. 2. He whips out his stiletto, and I whips out my bull-dog.
1715. Centlivre, Gotham Election, i. 4. You all talk it well affore you get in. but you are no sooner chose in but whip! you are as proud as the devil.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, viii. 267. When I came, whip was the key turned upon the girls.
1837. Marryat, Dog Fiend, xiii. [He] may . . . whip the whole boiling of us off to the Ingees.
To drink (or lick) on the whip, verb. phr. (common).—To get a thrashing, to taste the whip.
c. 1401. Townley Mysteries, 30. In fayth and for youre long tarying Ye shal lik on the whyp.
1576. Gascoigne, Steel Glas [Arber], 68. Comes naked neede? and chance to do amisse? He shal be sure, to drinke vpon the whippe.
To whip the cat, verb. phr. (old).—1. To pinch, to be parsimonious, mean, stingy.
2. (old).—To go from house to house to work: chiefly tailors', but the practice was more or less common to all trades. Hence whip-cat = a tailor: see quot. 1871.
18[?]. Goodrich, Remin., i. 74. Twice a year, the tailor came to the house and fabricated the semi-annual stock of clothes for the male members, this being called whipping the cat.
1870. Judd, Margaret, iii. Mr. Hart made shoes, a trade he prosecuted in an itinerating manner from house to house, 'whipping the cat,' as it was termed.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, 648. Whipping the cat: an old English phrase, used only by tailors and carpenters, has maintained its existence in New England, Pennsylvania, and a few other States, where it denotes the annual visit of a tailor to repair the clothes of a household. It is said to have originated in a very rough practical joke, which bears the same name in Hampshire, England, and of which, it is surmised, the tailor may have been the victim (J. R. Lowell). The simple tailors of former days liked thus to go from house to house in the rural districts, providing the families with clothing. The chief romance for the happy 'Schneider' was in the abundant and wholesome cheer of the farmer who employed him, and as his annual visits fell in the pudding and sausage season, he was usually crammed with that kind of 'vegetables,' as he facetiously called them, to his heart's content. The only objection made to catwhipping, was that it afforded no opportunity to 'cabbage,' and in former days this was a serious grievance. The introduction of large manufacturing establishments, low-priced ready-made clothing, and the advent of the sewing-machine, have now nearly made an end to this itinerant occupation. The terms catwhipper and catwhipping were often facetiously, and sometimes very irreverently, applied to other itinerant professions: even 'Schoolmasters'—there were no 'teachers,' much less 'educators,' in those benighted days—were called catwhippers, when they boarded, as was
