whiplash

plural whiplashes

1. countableThe lash of a whip.
2. countableuncountableAn injury to the upper spine connected to a violent jerk of the head in either a backward or forward or side to side direction, resembling the motion of a whip.

   Of the nine staff in the third coach, most had been having a break, drinking tea or reading. One suffered a fractured skull, another a fractured shoulder. All were either thrown along or across the coach, sustaining cuts, bruising and whiplash injuries.

   2026 March 18, Greg Morse, “1996 crash driving freight reforms”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 50

   Synonyms: whiplash injury, whiplash-associated disorder

3. countablefigurativelyuncountableAn abrupt and unexpected change, or the resulting feeling of shock.

   tonal whiplash

   3 more examples

   Some parents, feeling too hurt by the push-off or taking their teenager’s rejections too personally, choose to make themselves unavailable. In some ways it does feel better to avoid episodes of emotional whiplash.

   2014, Lisa Damour, “The Emotional Whiplash of Parenting a Teenager”, in Motherlode: Adventures In Parenting

   A week of public health reversals from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left Americans with pandemic whiplash, sowing confusion about coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing as the Delta variant upends what people thought they knew about how to stay safe.

   2021, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Michael D. Shear, “Americans Suffer Pandemic Whiplash as Leaders Struggle With Changing Virus”, in The New York Times

   And he talked about the “whiplash” he often feels when it comes to A.I. these days, as some people urge companies like Google to move faster on A.I., release more products and take bigger risks, while others urge them to slow down and be more cautious.

   2023 March 31, Kevin Roose, “Google C.E.O. Sundar Pichai on the A.I. Moment: ‘You Will See Us Be Bold’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: switchback, zigzag course

present singular third person whiplashes · participle present whiplashing · participle past whiplashed · past whiplashed

1. To jerk back and forth; to buffet.

   […] Ms. Kennedy has been whiplashed by assertions that she is at once protected and presumptuous.

   2008 December 23, Nicholas Confessore, “Resistance to Kennedy Grows among Democrats”, in The New York Times

2. To lash as if with a whip.

   After a while, he let go of my hand in order to protect his own face from being whiplashed by the low branches.

   1990, V.C. Andrews, My Sweet Audrina, →ISBN, page 98