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Whip (slapstick).
French for whip, printed in full on a percussion line. Each note is a single crack, usually accented; there is no roll. The instrument stays with that player until the part names another.
Like the German Peitsche, the orchestral fouet is a slapstick — two hinged boards slapped together — giving one sharp, dry crack. Ravel opens his Piano Concerto in G with a single crack of it. Use it for a punctuating accent rather than a rhythm; in quick succession it loses its surprise, and the player needs a free hand and a moment to pick it up.
Fouet is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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