three-line whips
three-line whips is the plural of three-line whip.
Meaning of three-line whip
Noun
three-line whip (plural three-line whips)
- A directive to MPs from party leaders to attend a parliamentary meeting and vote in a particular way, despite what the MP might believe or what his or her constituents might like.
- Since the metaphysical status of egg-casing is not one on which the church has yet pronounced, opposition appears based on "yuck" and nothing else. But yuck has become diktat, with Catholic MPs up to cabinet level being given a three-line whip by their bishops.2008 April 12, Simon Jenkins, Richard Harries, “Atheist versus Bishop”, in The Guardian
- An imperative order.
- I have to go shopping with the wife, I'm afraid. She's given me a three-line whip.
Questions about three-line whips
- What is three-line whips the plural of?
- Three-line whips is the plural of three-line whip.
Words near three-line whips in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: three-line whips (page history and authors); three-line 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: “three-line whips.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/three-line_whips. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.