whipstock

whip +‎ stock

whipstock (plural whipstocks)

1. The stock, or rigid handle, of a whip.
   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene 2]:

     He had need mean better than his outward show
     Can any way speak in his just commend;
     For by his rusty outside he appears
     To have practised more the whipstock than the lance.

   • 1895, Kate Douglas Wiggin, “The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry”, in The Village Watch-Tower‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 216:

     Jerry gave one terror-stricken look, wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, disappeared behind a convenient tree.

   • 1913, Elizabeth Mary Wright, chapter 14, in Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore‎, Oxford University Press, page 234:

     […] cowherds and carters had goads and whipstocks of quicken-wood, to counteract the witch who could bring the team to a standstill, whence the old sayings: Woe to the lad Without a rowan-tree gad, and: If your whipstock’s made of rown You may ride through any town.

   • 1917 September, Robert Frost, “The Axe-Helve”, in The Atlantic Monthly, page 339:

     He liked to have [the axe-helve] slender as a whipstock,
     Free from the least knot, equal to the strain
     Of bending like a sword across the knee.

2. (by extension) The driver of a carriage.

• stockwhip