whistle-stopn.
/ˈwɪslstɒp/, U.S. /ˈ(h)wɪs(ə)lˌstɑp/ Originally U.S.
1. A small station or town at which trains do not stop unless requested by a signal given on a whistle.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > rail travel > railway system or organization > [noun] > station > other types
stopping station1840
way station1840
flag-station1852
by-station1864
transfer station1869
junction1876
stationette1891
station house1891
halt1910
stub station1916
ghost station1928
whistle-stop1934
parkway1972
1934 M. H. Weseen Dict. Amer. Slang 418 Whistle Stop, a small town.
1944 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 2 Sept. 2/4 The frank..and..challenging story of the men of the U.S. Foreign Service who represent America in the whistle~stops of the world.
1948 N.Y. Times 7 Sept. 18/8 President Truman told a railroad station crowd here tonight that ‘before this campaign is over I expect to visit every whistle stop in the United States’.
1949 Time 9 May 29/3 To protest making Electra a whistle stop for express trains, he had thousands of plastic whistles molded in the shape of locomotives.
1949 ‘H. Robbins’ Dream Merchants (1950) 290 He thought Rock had been acting strangely yesterday when they had been married at that whistle stop just inside the California border.
1957 B. Hutchison Canada 217 The railway traveler sees only the dismal villages of the main line, the whistle stops around a wooden grain elevator..and a garage.
1965 S. G. Lawrence 40 Years on Yukon Telegraph xvii. 102 The railway company only recognized the town as a whistle stop.
2. One of a series of rapid, superficial visits.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > aspects of travel > a journey > [noun] > a visit to a place > rapid or superficial
whistle-stop1952
1952 Manch. Guardian Weekly 7 Aug. 3 Truman opens his trap at the first whistle-stop.
1952 Manch. Guardian Weekly 9 Oct. 3 As for Mr Truman's contribution by whistle-stop, his speeches have been..violently abusive.
1959 Observer 2 Aug. 9/4 We have gone on the marathon round of the dress shows (making whistle stops at breakfast and lunchtime at the smaller houses).
1976 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 17 Sept. a2/1 President Ford is making a three-day tour..that will include a series of ‘whistlestops’ aboard a Mississippi riverboat.
3. Used attributively to designate a journey with a lot of brief halts; spec. one by a campaigning politician that takes in many undistinguished places in this way. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > [adjective] > type of campaign journey
whistle-stop1949
society > travel > aspects of travel > a journey > [adjective] > with brief stops
whistle-stop1949
1949 Time 6 June 22/1 Louis Johnson..raised enough money..to pay for Harry Truman's whistle-stop campaign.
1952 Manch. Guardian Weekly 18 Sept. 3/1 On the whistle-stop tour down California's Central Valley.
1959 Manch. Guardian 23 July 1/3 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh..continued their ‘whistle stop’ journey to Moose Jaw.
1972 G. Durrell Catch me Colobus v. 94 Our whistle-stop tours of the villages round about had paid dividends and when we went to visit them again we rarely came away empty handed.
1973 M. Truman Harry S. Truman i. 1 We had left Independence, Missouri, earlier in the day, and made a whistle-stop visit to Junction City, Kansas, at 11:05 p.m.
1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 July 904/4 She goes on to a whistle-stop history of attitudes to female inversion from Ancient Greece to the present day.
1978 Broadcast 17 July 15/1 BBC Radio 1's Roadshow set off again this week with a seven-week whistle stop tour of Britain's holiday resorts.
1981 Notes & Queries Dec. 556/1 The result is an unremitting whistle-stop tour through barren regions.
Derivatives
ˈwhistle-stop v. (a) transitive, to travel through (a region) on a whistle-stop tour (rare); (b) intransitive, to make a whistle-stop tour.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > [verb (intransitive)] > travel about or visit many places > tour > with brief stops
to swing around the circle1866
whistle-stop1952
society > travel > [verb (transitive)] > travel about > tour > with brief stops
whistle-stop1952
1952 News (Birmingham, Alabama) 26 July 1/3 In a sort of swan song to the Democratic Party as its leader, he offered to whistle-stop the country for his successor.
1952 Time 13 Oct. 23/3 In Michigan last week, nearly 100,000 people turned out to see Eisenhower as he whistlestopped across the state.
1978 Guardian 14 Dec. 15/4 Howard Jarvis..the Messiah of taxpayers..has whistle-stopped across the United States with..226 events every 10 days.
ˈwhistle-stopping n.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > [noun] > travelling about > touring > with brief halts
swing1860
whistle-stopping1952
1952 News (Birmingham, Alabama) 23 Sept. 14/5 Ike Eisenhower had settled down to whistle-stopping.
1957 Ann. Reg. 1956 183 Most of the ‘whistle-stopping’ was left to the assiduous Mr. Nixon.
1959 Observer 12 July 4/7 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have been whistle-stopping their way across British Columbia.
1964 J. Reston in M. McLuhan Understanding Media xxxii. 339 Everybody's now whistle-stopping through somebody else's country, usually ours.
1972 Observer 23 Apr. 6/4 Italian politicians are whistle-stopping around the country this weekend in..the..election campaign.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1934