snap-the-whip

Open pops out of nowhere, to wake us up and yank us, like a snap-the-whip, into the empire of September -- early sunsets, cool evenings, heart-hurting nostalgia -- and remind us of what tennis means to America.

U.S. Open 2000: Giant Ladies Take Queens 2006

First enemy: A bully in grade school, used to take great delight in finding victims for snap-the-whip ..

grouse Diary Entry grouse 2004

The boys took turns in pushing Mrs. Harold's chair, spinning it along over the smooth surface of the ice in the wake of Peggy, Polly and the others, who now and again joined hands to "snap-the-whip," "run-the - train," or go through some pretty figure.

Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home

He was followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playing snap-the-whip.

The Bent Twig Dorothy Canfield Fisher 1918

It trails along the slope of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes water-courses; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated to remind one of the days when he played "snap-the-whip" and happened to be the snapper himself.

Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska Charles Warren Stoddard 1876

"snap-the-whip" left off and crowded round, and one of the boys profited by the occasion to lock into the barn, near which we sat, a peasant who had gone in to fodder his cattle.

A Little Swiss Sojourn William Dean Howells 1878