whacking

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English

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Verb

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whacking

  1. present participle and gerund of whack

Adjective

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whacking (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Exceptionally large; whopping (often followed by an adjective such as great or big).
    • 1762, Thomas Bridges, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, London: S. Hooper, 1772, Book 7 of Homer’s Iliad, p. 289,[1]
      [] all our grannies tell us how
      He kill’d a whacking great dun cow;
    • 1819, Olivia Clarke, The Irishwoman. A Comedy in Five Acts, London: H. Colburn, Act V, Scene 2, p. 80,[2]
      [] these two whacking Irish boys, that I was telling you of just now, are posted at the hall door to seize the villain, and take him to pay his respects to the next sitting magistrate []
    • 1895, Arthur Quiller-Couch, “The Roll-Call of the Reef”, in Wandering Heath: Stories, Studies, and Sketches[3], London: Cassell & Co., published 1896, page 13:
      [] beside them clung a trumpeter, a whacking big man, an’ between the heavy seas he would lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he blew the men gave a cheer.
    • 1903, F. Marion Crawford, Man Overboard![4], New York: Macmillan, pages 81–82:
      He was what they call a Hard-shell Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper lip and a whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he didn't expect to see many of us hereafter []
    • 1926, Neville Shute, chapter 5, in Marazan[5], London: Cassell & Co.:
      There was no secret in Genoa about the destination of the little tramp with the peculiar equipment of lifeboats and davits—two whacking great motor boats each as big as a Navy pinnace, each with a couple of hundred horse-power in her.
    • 1932, Delta Sigma Delta-Desmos, volume 38, page 151:
      If any of you want a whacking lot of experience, lots of thrills to the minute and can pay your own freight, sign up for that trip to the land of the Northern Lights.
    • 2004 February 27, Peter Bradshaw, “House of Sand and Fog”, in The Guardian:
      He seizes on an opportunity to buy a house at a repo-auction, planning to sell it on for a whacking profit.

Noun

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whacking (plural whackings)

  1. A beating.

Anagrams

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