wham
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
- IPA(key): /wæm/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (without the wine–whine merger) IPA(key): /hwæm/
- Rhymes: -æm
Noun[edit]
wham (plural whams)
- a forceful blow
- Roger was given a violent wham by his boxing opponent.
- the sound of such a blow; a thud
- We heard a wham as the hammer struck the wall.
Interjection[edit]
wham
- The sound of a forceful blow.
- Wham! The truck hit the wall.
- 1950 July 22, Ferguson Findley, “Waterfront”, in Louis Ruppel, editor, Collier's: Incorporating Features of the American Magazine, Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, page 16:
- I was off duty, minding my own business, […] when I heard a gun go off. Wham! it roared, not more than twenty feet from me, and then, in quick succession, wham—wham!
- Used to indicate something sudden, unanticipated, and dramatic has occurred.
- Our relationship was going smoothly and then wham! Out of nowhere he told me he was leaving me for another woman.
- 1952 September 22, “Since Stevenson Prefers 'Compromise', Foreign Policy Is Squarely in the Campaign”, in LIFE, volume 33, number 12, Time Inc., →ISSN, page 30:
- Wham! Overnight he [Dwight D. Eisenhower] became a warmonger.
- 2008 August, Douglas Coupland, “40 on the Outside, 30 on the Inside: My theory of how men really age”, in Best Life, volume 5, number 6, Rodale, Inc., →ISSN, page 77:
- I'll look the exact same way for a decade, and then— wham!— God hits the progeria switch and for two years the downhill plunge begins anew.
Translations[edit]
sound of a forceful blow
Verb[edit]
wham (third-person singular simple present whams, present participle whamming, simple past and past participle whammed)
Related terms[edit]
Anagrams[edit]
Middle English[edit]
Pronoun[edit]
wham
- Alternative form of whom (“who, whom”, accusative)
Scots[edit]
Pronoun[edit]
wham
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led.
- Scots, whom Bruce has often led.
Categories:
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- Rhymes:English/æm
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