Whip commanding officer on head to sate desire (7)
I believe the answer is:
scourge
'whip' is the definition.
(I know that scourge is a more specific form of the action the whip)
'commanding officer on head to sate desire' is the wordplay.
'commanding officer' becomes 'co'.
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'head to' suggests taking the first letters.
'desire' becomes 'urge' (I've seen this before).
The initial letter of 'sate' is 's'.
'co' after 's' is 'sco'.
'sco'+'urge'='SCOURGE'
(Other definitions for scourge that I've seen before include "A cause of great trouble" , "Plague; whip" , "administer punishment" , "Pest" , "source of evil" .)