quirt

From Spanish cuerda (“cord”), or Mexican Spanish cuarta (“whip”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kwɜːt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /kwɚt/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t

quirt (plural quirts)

1. A rawhide whip plaited with two thongs of buffalo hide.
   • about 1900, O. Henry, Hygeia at the Solito

     He sprang into the saddle easily as a bird, got the quirt from the horn, and gave his pony a slash with it.

   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 3, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, OCLC 6868219:

     He paused a moment and flicked a sage-brush with his quirt.

   • 1920, Peter B. Kyne, The Understanding Heart, Chapter I:

     […] when the young man whirled his horse, “hazed” Jupiter in circles and belaboured him with a rawhide quirt, […] He ceased his cavortings […]

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, OCLC 43419454:

     He wore a revolver down low, with ammunition belt, and carried a small quirt of some kind, and pieces of leather hanging everywhere, like a walking torture chamber: shiny shoes, low-hanging jacket, cocky hat, everything but boots.

   • 1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin (2001), page 96:

     She raised the handle of her beautiful quirt to her eyes and scanned the Western horizon.

   • 1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:

     He rode his horse with the reins tied and he wore a pistol at his belt and a plain flatcrowned hat of a type no longer much seen in that country and he wore tooled boots to his knees and carried a quirt.

quirt (third-person singular simple present quirts, present participle quirting, simple past and past participle quirted)

1. To strike with a quirt.

• (to whip or scourge): Thesaurus:whip