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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Quirt

Quirt \Quirt\ (kw[~e]rt), n. A rawhide whip plaited with two thongs of buffalo hide.
--T. Roosevelt.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
quirt

"short-handled braided leather riding whip," 1845, from Mexican Spanish cuarta "rope," related to Spanish cuerda "rope," from Latin corda (see cord (n.)).

Wiktionary
quirt

n. A rawhide whip plaited with two thongs of buffalo hide. vb. To strike with a quirt.

WordNet
quirt

n. whip with a leather thong at the end

Wikipedia
Quirt

A quirt is a forked type of whip which usually has two falls at the end (like the tails on some tawses), sometimes called a riding quirt or horse quirt.

The falls on a quirt are made of leather, usually cow hide. The core of the quirt can be a leather bag filled with lead shot; the main part including the handle is often made from braided rawhide, leather, or kangaroo hide and is usually somewhat stiff but flexible.

The old-style horse quirt is still carried by some Western horsemen, and this style of quirt is seen in the early Western cowboy films.

The quirt, due to its slow action, is not particularly effective as a riding aid for horses, though at times it has been used as a tool of punishment. Rather, it is an effective tool to slap or goad cattle from horseback.

In the vaquero tradition, a quirt with a long handle, known as a romal, was attached to the end of a closed set of reins. The romal was primarily used as a noisemaker to slap or goad cattle. (The handle made it too slow and of the wrong length for use on the horse.) This combination of romal and closed reins, today referred to as "romal reins" or "romal-style reins", is seen primarily in the horse show ring in certain types of Western pleasure classes.

Usage examples of "quirt".

Hunter and Johnson owned exactly a section and a half of land, and for a mile and a half Quirt Creek was fenced upon either side.

The Quirt ranch was almost surrounded by Sawtooth land of one sort or another, though there was scant grazing in the early spring on the sagebrush wilderness to the south.

This needed Quirt Creek for accessible water, and Quirt Creek, save where it ran through cut-bank hills, was fenced within the section and a half of the TJ up-and-down.

Lorraine saw him stand back and lift his quirt to slash the horse across the rump.

Lone was heading for the Quirt ranch by the most direct route, fearing, perhaps, that if he waited he would lose his nerve and would not go at all.

Indeed, if he followed the trail up Granite Creek and across the hilly country to Quirt Creek, he must pass within fifty yards of the Thurman cabin.

Bob Warfield, had driven her over to the Quirt in a Ford and had seemed exactly like any other big, good-looking young man who thought well of himself.

The Quirt had permission to cut posts for their new fence which Al Woodruff had reported to his boss.

She struck Yellowjacket with her quirt and sent him sidling past the wagon and the tricky Caroline, too stubborn to answer her dad when he called after her that she had better ride behind the load.

I could say to her that a man is hurt and that a doctor must come very quickly to the Quirt ranch.

Lone reached the Quirt ranch and dropped reins at the doorstep, not much past mid-afternoon.

Had she lived all of her life on the Quirt, she probably would never have thought of fighting back and would have accepted conditions just as her dad seemed to accept them.

He had been watching Lone and Swan and the dog, trailing certain tracks through the sagebrush down below, and when Lorraine rode away from the Quirt they were in the wagon road, fussing around the place where Frank had been found.

If you think you frame something, maybe, I pack a dead man to the Quirt again.

From there they put Jack on the freshest hoofprints leaving the place, and were led here and there in an apparently aimless journey to nowhere until, after Jack had been at fault in another rock patch, the trail took them straight away to the ridge overlooking the Quirt ranch.