Quirt

What is a quirt?

A quirt (no word of its own in Dutch, the karwats comes closest) is a short whip from the American West: a braided leather handle with two wide leather falls at the end. The object belongs with the horse and was used from the saddle to drive cattle. Those two falls set it apart from other short whips.

How a quirt is built

Like a piece of horse tack, not like a whip.

The English-language encyclopedia describes the body as braided rawhide, leather, or kangaroo leather, fairly stiff but flexible, with falls of leather and usually of cowhide. The core can be a leather bag of shot pellets. At the grip there is a loop, so the thing stays hanging on the wrist when you need the reins.

That explains how it behaves. A quirt is too slow and too short to steer a horse with, the same source writes, but well suited to driving cattle from the saddle. A short tool for a short blow, up close.

What sets a quirt apart from a riding whip

The number of falls, and a word history that has nothing to do with it.

The English dictionary entry describes the quirt as a rawhide whip braided with two strips of buffalo hide. Two strips, then, side by side, wide. The riding whip has one, and it is braided to a point that can crack. Two wide falls do not do that: they land flat and at once, and spread the blow over a larger area.

The names lie further apart than you’d think, too. Quirt appeared in 1845 in American English, from the Mexican Spanish cuarta, related according to Etymonline to the Spanish cuerda, cord, from the Latin corda. The Dutch karwats comes by a wholly different route, from Turkish. Two separate inventions that came to the same thing.

Where this fits on this site

Which striking tool comes along and what it does to you, I go through with you beforehand. On the BDSM date page you can read how such a pre-conversation goes.

Sources

• Quirt. Wikipedia (English). The only encyclopedic overview entry on this object; used here only for descriptive data and not for statements about effect or safety. Provides the description as a short whip associated with the American Southwest, the falls of leather and usually cowhide, the core that can be a leather bag filled with shot, the braided rawhide, leather, or kangaroo leather of handle and body, the note that the whole is fairly stiff but flexible, the loop at the end, the point that the quirt’s slow action makes it no effective means of steering a horse but suited to driving cattle from the saddle, and the current use by Mongolian riders.
• quirt (n.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Provides the dating of 1845 in the American English of the western United States, the description “short-handled braided leather riding whip,” and the derivation from the Mexican Spanish cuarta, related to the Spanish cuerda and the Latin corda. There is no agreement on exactly which Spanish word underlies it: the English Wiktionary names cuerda and cuarta side by side as two possibilities.
• quirt. Wiktionary (English). A dictionary without editorial oversight, used here only for the definition itself and not for a factual claim: it describes the quirt as a rawhide whip braided with two strips of buffalo hide, and gives the two named Spanish etymologies.

Related terms

A quirt is a tool for impact play, and its family is everything you swing by hand.

• Riding whip. The nearest neighbor: one braided fall instead of two, and a word that comes from Turkey.
• Crop. The same length, but with a stiff rod and a keeper instead of loose falls.
• Bullwhip. The far end of the other side: meters of fall, and a crack instead of a blow.
• Cat o’ nine tails. Nine tails where the quirt has two.
• Flogger. Spreads the blow over many more tails than a quirt does.
• Leather. The material a quirt is made of from start to finish.
• Riding crop. The crop under its own heading, and what the equestrian federation has laid down about its use.
• Single tail. The family with one long tail, against the two short falls of the quirt.