whipper
(ˈhwɪpə(r))
[f. whip v. + -er1.]
One who or that which whips, in various senses.
1. One who beats or chastises with (or as with) a whip; a scourger, flogger; spec. an official who inflicts whipping as a legal punishment. Also fig.
| 1552 Huloet, Whypper who whyppeth beggers and vacaboundes, or others, plagiarius. 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster v. iii, Ambitiously, affecting the title of the vntrussers, or whippers of the age. 1628 Feltham Resolves ii. [i.] l. 147 It is the basest Office Man can fall into, to make his tongue the Whipper of the Worthy man. 1697 J. Partridge (title) Flagitiosus Mercurius flagellatus; or the Whipper whipp'd. 1813 E. S. Barrett Heroine xvi. (1909) 88 At last, marrying some honest gentleman,{ddd}she degenerates into a dangler of keys and whipper of children. 1841 J. W. Orderson Creoleana ix. 96 The brutal hand of the mercenary whipper. 1886 8th Rep. Prison Comm. Scot. 6 The case against the boy was accordingly delayed,..because a whipper could not be found. |
b. = flagellant A. 1.
| a 1656 Bp. Hall Serm. 1 Cor. xi. 10 Wks. 1808 V. 487 A brood of mad heretics,..whom they called Flagellantes, ‘the whippers’; which went about..lashing themselves to blood. 1782 Priestley Corrupt. Chr. II. ix. 213 The whippers..ran about in promiscuous multitudes. |
c. = whipper-in 1, 2. ? Obs.
| 1826 Sporting Mag. (N.S.) XVII. 366 John Roberts the huntsman, and Will Veale the whipper. 1884 Gladstone in Western Daily Press 12 July 8/1 The authority, for every loyal Liberal, of the whipper. |
d. A kind of fishing-rod: see quot., and cf. whip v. 8.
| 1688 Holme Armoury iii. iii. 103/1 A Whipper, or Whipping Rod is a slender top Rod, that is weak in the middle and top heavy, but all slender and fine. |
2. A person or thing that surpasses others. (Cf. whip v. 12.) ? Obs. exc. dial. applied to a big active person.
| c 1520 Boke of Mayd Emlyn 356 in Hazlitt Early Pop. Poetry IV. 94 Bycause he coude clepe her, She called hym a whypper. 1540 J. Heywood Four PP. C i b, This relyke, her is a whipper..here is a slypper Of one of the seuen slepers. |
3. A workman who hoists coal with a ‘whip’: = coal-whipper. (Cf. whip v. 5.)
| 1835–6 Barlow in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VIII. 87/1 The four whippers now run up a sort of step-ladder. 1836–9, etc. [see coal-whipper]. 1887 R. Newman in Charity Org. Rev. July 275 Coal-whipping..has now all but ceased; but a similar class of men..are probably as numerous as were the whippers of twenty years ago. |
4. One who runs the coloured thread along the edge of a blanket. (Cf. whip v. 18.)
| 1881 Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 66 Blanket Manufacture;..Tucker. Whipper. Binder. |