whip hand
1
7.7
- noun
:
ventaja
- In the negotiation, the company had the whip hand because they were the only supplier available.
- hold the whip hand
Examples
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Where Amazon has the whip hand seems to be in its searchability; a reader can enter keywords on Amazon and come up with my book, but on B&N et al., they essentially have to know the title or author name.
Blog text (11) -
She had the whip hand now, and he would have to wrest it back.
Fiction book (1993) -
Now I have the whip hand over you, for you cannot give her back.
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You hold the whip hand.
Blog text (1) -
Sheriff Charlie was the whip hand for old Judge Tibbs, who pretty much owned this county back then.
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And the Bernie Sanders people in both instances ended up having a lot more of a whip hand than one would expect.
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Well, Isakaris still had the whip hand, and he wasn't going to sit still while that took place.
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With the whip hand in foreign policy, the president, of course, has the primary responsibility to reach across the aisle to try and forge such a consensus and partnership.
Blog text (8) -
The whip hand that Obama has with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts is much more likely to yield a workable compromise.
Blog text (26) -
" You can't stop us from looking for that white teacher." "I would not presume to interfere with your duty," Eliza replied smoothly, confident that she now had the whip hand.
Fiction book (1994)
Synonyms
54
3.2
A position giving power or advantage over someone in a situation
Antonyms
How Advantageous
Surface Forms
Morphology
whip + hand
A B1 learner who knows 'whip' (either as an instrument or a political officer) and 'hand' would not reliably derive 'a position of advantage or control' from those literal meanings. The idiomatic sense is conventional and not a transparent composition of the constituents (and the political sense of 'whip' is specialized), so the meaning is unpredictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Whip hand may come from the picture of someone holding a whip in their hand to control animals or people. If you held the whip hand, you were the one with power and control, so today it means 'a position of advantage'.