1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Whisker

WHISKER, a word chiefly used in the plural in the sense of the hair worn by a man on the cheeks as opposed to the beard on the chin and the moustache on the upper lip (see Beard). It is also applied to the bristly feelers growing round the mouth of a cat or other animal. The word by derivation means that which “whisks” or “brushes.”