[f. the phr. to whip in: see WHIP v. 6 d.]
1. A huntsman’s assistant who keeps the hounds from straying by driving them back with the whip into the main body of the pack. Also called shortly a whip (WHIP sb. 5), or formerly occas. a whipper (WHIPPER 1 c).
1739. Ess. Better Regul. Free-Thinking, 7. Should … the Postilion turn Cook, and the Whipper in resolve to be nothing less than Steward or Butler.
1742. Fielding, J. Andrews, I. ii. He was soon transplanted from the Fields into the Dog-kennel, where he was placed under the Huntsman, and made what Sportsmen term a Whipper-in.
1875. W. S. Hayward, Love agst. World, i. The brothers … ordered their whipper-in … to unkennel the hounds.
fig. 1785. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Lyric Odes, iv. Wks. 1812, I. 87. My Muse is whipper-in.
1836. E. Howard, R. Reefer, xxxv. One of the two … brigs that was to accompany us as whippers-in to the convoy.
b. In the game of hare and hounds, a runner whose business it is to keep the hounds in order.
1855. ‘G. Forrest,’ Every Boy’s Bk., 11. The Hare should not be the best runner, but should be daring, and … prudent…. A Huntsman and Whipper-in are then chosen…. The Hare then starts, and has about seven minutes’ grace, at the expiration of which time the Huntsman blows a horn … and sets off, the Hounds keeping nearly in Indian file, the Whipper-in bringing up the rear.
1901. R. S. Warren Bell, Tales of Greyhouse, 47. The too impetuous hounds had to be curbed by the whippers-in.
c. Racing slang. The horse last in a race or at any given moment of a race.
1892. Daily News, 8 Sept., 3/5. The field began to break up, and the whippers in became Curio and El Diablo.
2. In parliamentary use, = WHIP sb. 6. Obs. exc. Hist.
1771. Ann. Reg., Misc. Ess., 196/1. He was first a whipper-in to the Premier, and then became Premier himself.
1792. J. Pearson’s Pol. Dict., Whipper-in, a fellow that sends for Members to carry a question when the Minister is hard run.
1835. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Parl. Sk. He … will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when he was whipper-in for the Government, brought four men out of their beds to vote in the majority.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 9 Oct., 12/1. At the beginning of the Canadian ‘Parliamentary Companion’ a whole page is headed in large capitals, ‘Whippers-in.’ Then follow the names of the various party ‘Whips,’ as we would call them.
