whisk
/ˈwɪsk/
whisk noun: a quick, light sweeping motion.
Noun (1)
whisk (plural whisks)
- A quick, light sweeping motion.
- With a quick whisk, she swept the cat from the pantry with her broom.
- A kitchen utensil, now usually made from stiff wire loops fixed to a handle (and formerly of twigs), used for whipping (or a mechanical device with the same function).
- He used a whisk to whip up a light and airy souffle.
- A bunch of twigs, hair, etc., used as a brush.
- Peter dipped the whisk in lather and applied it to his face, so he could start shaving.
- A small handheld broom with a small (or no) handle.
- I used a whisk to sweep the counter, then a push-broom for the floor.
- A plane used by coopers for evening chines.
- A kind of cape, forming part of a woman's dress.
- My wife in her new lace whiske.1665 March 21 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “March 12th, 1664–1665”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume IV...
Verb
whisk (third-person singular simple present whisks, present participle whisking, simple past and past participle whisked)
- To move something with quick light sweeping motions.
- Vernon whisked the sawdust from his workbench.
- He that walks in gray, whisking his riding Page.1626 February 13 (licensing date; Gregorian calendar), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Noble Gentleman”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey...
- In cooking, to whip e.g. eggs or cream.
- The chef prepared to whisk the egg whites for the angel's food cake.
- First, marinate the tofu. In a bowl, whisk the kecap manis, chilli sauce, and sesame oil together. Cut the tofu into strips about 1cm thick, mix gently (so it doesn't break) with the marinade and leave in the fridge for half an hour.2012 May 8, Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, Random House, →ISBN, page 79
- To move something rapidly and with no warning.
- July 3, 1769, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Strafford
I beg she would not impale worms, nor whisk carp out of one element into another. - The governess whisked the children from the room before they could see their presents.
- July 3, 1769, Horace Walpole, letter to the Earl of Strafford
- To move lightly and nimbly.
- The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
- The children whisked down the road to the fair, laughing and chattering as they went.
- To move whiskers.
Noun (2)
whisk (uncountable)
- The card game whist.
- Trump, noddy, whisk, hole[…]1621, John Taylor, Taylor's Motto
whisk meaning in Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic
whisk in Hindi
- व्हिस्क करें
whisk in Malayalam
- വേഗം എത്തിക്കുക, ഝടുതിയിൽ മാറ്റുക, ആഞ്ഞെറിയുക, മുട്ടവെളളയോ ക്രീമോ അടിച്ചുപതമാക്കുക
whisk in Kannada
- ಕೊಡವು, ಸರಕ್ಕನೆ ಅಲ್ಲಾಡಿಸು, ಸರಕ್ಕನೆ ಎತ್ತಿಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗು
whisk in Arabic
- kitchen utensil — see also egg whisk
- مِخْفَقَة miḵfaqa
More languagesFewer languages
- whisk in Thai
- ตะกร้อ dtà-grɔ̂ɔ
- whisk in Vietnamese
- cái đánh trứng
Examples of whisk in a sentence
- Whisk the mixture to a smooth consistency.
- Incorporate air into the mixture by whisking.
- Don't over-whisk the mixture – only whisk it so much.
Forms of whisk
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | whisks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | whisks |
| present participle | whisking |
| past participle | whisked |
| past | whisked |
Origin of whisk
From Middle English whisk, borrowed from Old Norse visk, from Proto-Germanic *wiskaz, *wiskō (“bundle of hay, wisp”), from Proto-Indo-European *weys-. Cognates Cognate with Danish visk, Dutch wis, German Wisch, Latin virga (“rod, switch”), viscus (“entrails”), Lithuanian vizgéti (“to tremble”), Czech věchet (“wisp of straw”), Sanskrit वेष्क (veṣka, “noose”). Compare also Old English wiscian (“to plait”), granwisc (“awn”). The unetymological wh- is probably expressive of the sound; compare the same development in whip and onomatopoeias such as whack and whoosh.
So called from the rapid action of sweeping the cards off the table after a trick has been won.
Words formed from whisk
Phrases with whisk
Words that rhyme with whisk
Questions about whisk
- What does whisk mean?
- Whisk means a quick, light sweeping motion.
- What is whisk in Hindi?
- Whisk in Hindi is व्हिस्क करें. See Whisk meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is whisk?
- Whisk can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce whisk?
- Whisk is pronounced /ˈwɪsk/.
- What is the plural of whisk?
- The plural of whisk is whisks.
Words near whisk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whisk (page history and authors); whisk (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whisk (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); whisk (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-whisk.wav.
Cite this entry: “whisk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whisk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.