Word.ws English Dictionary

crack the whip

crack the whip verb: to make harsh demands in a position of leadership. Also the alternative form of crack-the-whip.

Verb

crack the whip (third-person singular simple present cracks the whip, present participle cracked the whip, simple past and past participle cracked the whip)

  1. (figuratively) To make harsh demands in a position of leadership.

Also used as

crack the whip is also the alternative form of crack-the-whip.

Forms of crack the whip

third-person singular presentcracks the whip
present participlecracked the whip
past participlecracked the whip
pastcracked the whip

Questions about crack the whip

What does crack the whip mean?
Crack the whip means to make harsh demands in a position of leadership.
What part of speech is crack the whip?
Crack the whip is a verb.
What is the past tense of crack the whip?
The past tense of crack the whip is cracked the whip.

Words near crack the whip in the dictionary

  1. crack spreads
  2. crack team
  3. crack teams
  4. crack the egg
  5. crack the flags
  6. crack the whip
  7. crack through
  8. crack train
  9. crack trains
  10. crack up
  11. crack whore

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crack the whip (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “crack the whip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crack_the_whip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.