Dictionary Definition
quirt n : whip with a leather thong at the
end
User Contributed Dictionary
Pronunciation
IPA: /kwɜ:t/Noun
- A rawhide whip plaited
with two thongs of buffalo hide.
-
- 1973: She raised the handle of her beautiful quirt to her eyes and scanned the Western horizon. — Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me (Penguin 2001, p. 96)
- 1994: 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. — Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
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Translations
a rawhide whip plaited with two thongs of
buffalo hide
- Russian: арапник
Verb
quirt- To use a quirt to urge a horse on to greater speed.
Extensive Definition
A quirt is a forked type of stock
whip which usually has two falls at the end (like the tails on
some tawses). Sometimes
called a riding quirt, horse quirt, or a dog quirt.
The falls on a quirt are made of leather, buffalo,
or cow hide. The core of the quirt is usually a leather bag filled
with lead shot, the main part including the handle is often made
from braided rawhide,
leather or kangaroo
hide and is usually somewhat stiff but flexible.
The old style horse quirt is still carried by
some Western horsemen, and this is the style of quirt seen in the
early Western cowboy
films.
The quirt, due to its slow action, is not
particularly effective as a riding aid for
horses, though at times it has been used as a tool of punishment.
Rather, it is an effective tool to slap or goad cattle from horseback.
In the vaquero tradition, a quirt with
a long handle, known as a romal, was attached to the end of
a closed set of reins. The
romal was primarily used as a noisemaker to slap or goad cattle.
(The handle made it too slow and of the wrong length for use on the
horse.) This combination of romal and closed reins, today referred
to as romal reins, or romal-style reins, is seen primarily in the
horse
show ring in certain types of western
pleasure classes.
The Irving Klaw
photographs of the model Bettie Page
often showed her in a dominant pose holding a whip, usually a
quirt.