whip-sawn.

1538 T. Elyot Dict. Runcina, a whypsawe, wherwith tymber is sawen.

1552 in P. H. Hore Wexford (1901) 243 In the Storehouse at the Mynes..a whypp sawe.

1556 in J. Raine Wills & Inventories Archdeaconry Richmond (1853) 100 In Maid's chamber..11 old wood chests and a whype sawe.

1657 R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 107 Three whip-Sawes, going all at once in a Frame or Pit.

1678 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises I. vi. 99 The Whip-Saw is used..to Saw such greater peeces of Stuff that the Hand-Saw will not easily reach through;..two men takes each an handle of the Saw.

1846 C. Holtzapffel Turning & Mech. Manip. II. 701 The long saw, pit saw, or whip saw.

1846 C. Holtzapffel Turning & Mech. Manip. II. 703 The blade [of the pit frame-saw] is usually five or six feet long, and thinner than that of the whip saw.

1903 N. H. Banks Round Anvil Rock ii The rich dark wood of its walls and floor—all rudely smoothed with the broadaxe and the whip-saw.

1873 Kansas Mag. Mar. 232/1 There was fifteen hundred on the turn—seven hundred and fifty on each side of it—and the run was tray, ace; a whipsaw.

1929 L. F. Carr Amer. Challenged 79 The whip-saw of paying high prices for what they bought and being forced to receive low prices for what they sold.

1967 Listener 23 Nov. 656/3 The wage push..and the rising interest rates..have together caught the American economy in a cruel and sharp whipsaw... The worst sort of inflation of costs and the worst sort of deflation of values.

1977 Time 25 July 48/3 By the spring of 1974, the whipsaw effect of recession and rising costs—particularly for oil which fuels 80% of Con Ed's generating capacity—left the company strapped.

1842 Amer. Pioneer 1 83 Dwellinghouses, made of wood, whip-sawed into timbers, four inches thick, and of the requisite width and length.

1873 Kansas Mag. June 497/1 On the next Budd whipsawed him, and that closed that deal.

1884 Hartford (Connecticut) Post Sept. Had Braddock been half as prudent as he was brave, he could..have whipsawed the French and Indians in that campaign.

1904 E. Robins Magn. North ii. 26 He would..show us how to whip-saw.

1918 R. Dollar Mem. vi. 63 These [trees] are hewn in the woods either on two or four sides, and are then whip-sawn by the natives at the place of consumption.

1957 Listener 12 Dec. 970/1 Mr [Adlai] Stevenson has been whip-sawed by conflicting advice.

1958 F. G. Slaughter Daybreak iii. xiii. 176 The tendency to whipsaw all society into robots who work, think and eat alike is hardly an end product of intelligence.

1969 D. Bagley Spoilers ii. 58 ‘Okay, so you've whipsawed me,’ said Follet sourly.

1976 Billings (Montana) Gaz. 27 June 8- c/3 A major problem occurs when one small union negotiates a salary increase for its workers and all other state employes in the same job classification want the same increase. The effect is to ‘whipsaw’ the state between their competing demands.

1979 C. E. Schorske Fin-de-Siècle Vienna vii. 351 Schoenberg whipsaws us upward out of the crepuscular calm.

1885 Mag. Amer. Hist. 13 496/1 Whip-sawing, the acceptance of fees or bribes from two opposing persons or parties.

1903 Sun (N.Y.) 8 Nov. 10 The speculators have subjected themselves to the process known in Wall Street as whipsawing, that is, they have bought when the market was strong and sold when the market was weak, and found each time that they bought at the top and sold at the bottom.

1930 H. A. Innis Fur Trade in Canada ii. v. 140 Men were engaged in cutting, squaring, whipsawing, and hauling timber for the construction and repair of the forts.

1975 Weekend Mag. (Montreal) 12/1 Whip-sawing, industrial relations slang for the union practice of wringing a high settlement from a weak company and then using that settlement as a floor for bargaining with a big company, was rampant.

1881 Lumber World (U.S.) Mar. Some of the first saw mills built in England..were destroyed..on the ground that it would ruin the occupation of the whip sawyers.