Word.ws English Dictionary

whipstitch

whipstitch noun: a stitch that passes diagonally over an edge.

Noun

whipstitch (plural whipstitches)

  1. A stitch that passes diagonally over an edge.
  2. (archaic, derogatory) A tailor.
  3. Anything hastily put or stitched together; a hasty composition.
    • Where sold he bargains, "whip-stitch, kiss my arse", / Promised a play and dwindled to a farce?c. 1678, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe
  4. (colloquial) A little bit, especially a small interval of time; an instant.
  5. Half-ploughing or raftering.

Verb

whipstitch (third-person singular simple present whipstitches, present participle whipstitching, simple past and past participle whipstitched)

  1. To sew using such a stitch.
  2. To half-plough or rafter.

Forms of whipstitch

Noun
pluralwhipstitches
Verb
third-person singular presentwhipstitches
present participlewhipstitching
past participlewhipstitched
pastwhipstitched

Origin of whipstitch

From whip + stitch.

Questions about whipstitch

What does whipstitch mean?
Whipstitch means a stitch that passes diagonally over an edge.
What part of speech is whipstitch?
Whipstitch can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of whipstitch?
The plural of whipstitch is whipstitches.

Words near whipstitch in the dictionary

  1. whipstaves
  2. whipster
  3. whipsters
  4. whipstick
  5. whipsticks
  6. whipstitch
  7. whipstitched
  8. whipstitches
  9. whipstitching
  10. whipstock
  11. whipstocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whipstitch (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: “whipstitch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whipstitch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.