THE BEST SIDE OF SMARTWHIP

I can't find a much better connection (I don't subscribe to your OED) but a soar from smart/unpleasant used with whip to intelligence is just not an enormous leap. The identical matter took place with sharpI figured out the term, “whip smart” and that there's an idiom, “smart being a whip” for The 1st time from the following passage of Nove