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Glite Dictionary
to whip through

to whip through

2 4.9
To do something quickly and well
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : pasar rápidamente
  • "She sat at the table with my coffee and started gulping while she whipped through her files."
  • whipped through the pages

Examples

  • Hell, I must be getting old the way I'm watching that boy whip through that wood.

    Fences (2016)

  • With just some song sheets and a leader, they can really whip through the old tunes.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Whenever she sits down to it, she'll whip through it in an hour.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Danny's on the phone, whipping through several newspapers.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Justine whipped through the dresses on the rack, flipping one after the other, not finding anything she wanted to wear, and they had been at it for what seemed like hours.

    Blog text (23)

  • This allows the corporate farmer to whip through the field with his $185,000 tractor and harvest the soy plants with hardly a need for costly manual labor.

    Blog text (11)

  • He whips through his place in ten seconds, gathers up things laying about, shuts drawers, and rolls up his laundry in the folding bed.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • She was able to whip through the entire book in just one day.

  • The team needs to whip through the project to meet the deadline.

  • He can whip through the homework in no time at all.

Synonyms

to make quick work of
vsto whip through
  • Informal
4 3.9

Finish a task quickly and well

does tasks very quickly and efficiently with greater speed than usual
to skim
vsto whip through
1 2.7

Read something quickly without looking at details

means completing work very quickly and efficiently rather than superficial reading
to rattle through
vsto whip through
  • Informal
1 6.3

Do something quickly without stopping

focuses on continuous speed without pauses rather than careful efficiency
to crack through
vsto whip through
  • US
6.4

To work quickly to finish many tasks in a short time

does tasks very quickly and efficiently without time pressure

Antonyms

to linger
207 3.7

To stay in a place longer than expected because you do not want to leave

to procrastinate
26 6.5

To delay doing something you should do because you avoid it

How Quickly

to race
91 1.0
to whip through
  • Informal
2 4.9
to scan
127 2.7
to get through
128 3.3
browse
1 4.1

Surface Forms

whip through infinitive
whipped through past
whipped through past participle
whipping through present participle
whips through third person singular

Morphology

whip + through

There is a clear link between 'whip' (a sudden, swift motion) and 'through' (completely/from start to finish), so the sense of moving quickly through something is partially derivable from the parts. However, interpreting 'whip through' specifically as 'do/read/complete something quickly and efficiently' requires a metaphorical extension of the physical sense of 'whip' and may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner without prior exposure.

Etymology

Whip through: The phrasal verb whip through uses the image of a quick whipping action — imagine using a whip to make a horse run fast and go straight through a field. So when you whip through work or reading, you finish it very quickly and well.