Definition of "whiplike"

"I wanted the regular announcement of the blocks as they come along to have the whiplike quality of time," says the poetic dramatist, who as an author having his most complex play tried out for only three weeks prior to its Broadway opening is supremely conscious of the flagellative relentlessness of clock and calendar.

1986, Tennessee Williams, Albert J. Devlin, Conversations with Tennessee Williams, page 31