Definition of "whiplash"

Some parents, feeling too hurt by the push-off or taking their teenager’s rejections too personally, choose to make themselves unavailable. In some ways it does feel better to avoid episodes of emotional whiplash.

2014, Lisa Damour, “The Emotional Whiplash of Parenting a Teenager”, in Motherlode: Adventures In Parenting‎

A week of public health reversals from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left Americans with pandemic whiplash, sowing confusion about coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing as the Delta variant upends what people thought they knew about how to stay safe.

2021, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Michael D. Shear, “Americans Suffer Pandemic Whiplash as Leaders Struggle With Changing Virus”, in The New York Times‎

And he talked about the “whiplash” he often feels when it comes to A.I. these days, as some people urge companies like Google to move faster on A.I., release more products and take bigger risks, while others urge them to slow down and be more cautious.

2023 March 31, Kevin Roose, “Google C.E.O. Sundar Pichai on the A.I. Moment: ‘You Will See Us Be Bold’”, in The New York Times‎

[…] Ms. Kennedy has been whiplashed by assertions that she is at once protected and presumptuous.

2008 December 23, Nicholas Confessore, “Resistance to Kennedy Grows among Democrats”, in The New York Times‎

After a while, he let go of my hand in order to protect his own face from being whiplashed by the low branches.

1990, V.C. Andrews, My Sweet Audrina‎, page 98