Etymograph

English

whip

Whip comes from Middle Dutch wippen ‘to swing, leap, dance, oscillate’, from Proto-Germanic *wippōną ‘to move back and forth’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyp- ‘to shake’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*weyp-1‘to shake’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*wippōną1‘to move back and forth’reconstructed
  3. Middle Dutchc. 1150–1500wippen1‘to swing, leap, dance, oscillate’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500whippen1
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1597whip1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English whip
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1597, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wiues of Windsor: “They would whip me with their fine wits.”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*weyp-Wiktionary, English whip‘to shake’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*wippōnąWiktionary, English whip‘to move back and forth’reconstructed
  3. Middle Dutchc. 1150–1500wippenWiktionary, English whip‘to swing, leap, dance, oscillate’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500whippenWiktionary, English whip
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1597whipWiktionary, English whip. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1597, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wiues of Windsor: “They would whip me with their fine wits.”

The story

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.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *weyp- ‘to shake’

vibrant, wipe, vibration, weave, waive, vibrator, vibrate, waver, vibrato, waif, 8 more

Today it means

noun A lash; a pliant, flexible instrument, such as a rod (commonly of cane or rattan) or a plaited or braided rope or thong (commonly of leather) used to create a sharp "crack" sound for directing or herding animals.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “whip”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *weyp- / whip

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