whack
Noun pluralwhacks
Formswhacks, whacking, whacked
Pluralwhacks
- 1To hit, slap, or strike someone or something, typically with a sharp blow.
Carpenters whack the stubborn boards into place with a rubber mallet.
A low branch whacked her in the face on the trail.
Similarhit, strike, smack, thwack, bash
Note
Every form of this verb is regular (whacks, whacking, whacked), and it takes an object directly: the bat whacked the baseball. It also builds a path phrase. G. W. Cable's rodsmen were whacking their way through willow brakes, clearing ground blow by blow. Whack one's way through suits any progress forced through obstacles.
- 2A sharp blow or strike, especially one delivered with force.
The piñata finally burst after a solid whack from the youngest cousin.
He quieted the rattling pipe with a quick whack of his wrench.
Similarthwack
- 3The loud, sharp sound produced by a heavy blow or impact.
The whack of axes echoed through the forest all morning.
Each serve landed with a satisfying whack on the clay court.
Similarthwack
Note
The word probably imitates the noise itself, and it began in Scotland. It has a near twin in thwack, which formed when an older verb from Old English þaccian blended with whack. Either word serves for the noise, and the two share a sound-first origin that carries over to the blow that makes it.
- 4A try at doing something, or one's turn or chance to try, first used of an attempt to beat someone or something.
The intern asked for a whack at writing the press release.
After three whacks at the crossword, he finally gave up.
Similarshot, crack, stab, go (entry), try
Note
American slang that began with trying to land a blow on someone and widened to any try at all: take a whack at it means 'have a go.' A second use counts turns as units of price, as in forty bucks a whack or $805 a whack, where a whack simply means 'each time.' Both belong in casual speech, not formal writing.
- 5To kill or assassinate someone, typically on the orders of organized crime; to bump off.
Witnesses believed the mob whacked him for skimming from the casino take.
Nobody crosses the family and lives; they whack traitors without a second thought.
Similarkill, murder, assassinate, ice, waste
Note
This slang softens a killing into a blow. In Grand Theft Auto 4 (2008), Jimmy Pegorino draws the line exactly: 'So you want me to talk to him?' 'I want you to whack him!' It is not only mobster talk; an Ulster loyalist gunman used it of a killing he was ordered to carry out. Clip is a synonym, and both suit crime fiction or reported speech.
- 6To defeat an opponent convincingly or by a wide margin; to thrash.
The Yankees whacked the visitors twelve to two in the series opener.
Analysts expect the champions to whack every challenger this season.
Similarthrash, trounce, crush, rout, hammer
Note
Sports reporting reaches for this verb when the score is lopsided, and it is most at home in the passive with the margin attached: the Majors were whacked 9-1 by the Kitchener Panthers. That construction packs loser, score and winner into one clause, like a headline. Without a clear margin, plain beat is the better choice.
- 7Alternative spelling of wack.
Fans called the remix complete whack compared to the original track.
The bootleg sneakers turned out to be total whack.
Note
Here the slang adjective wack, meaning 'lousy, uncool,' turns into a noun for something bad: complete whack, total whack. Because this spelling also belongs to the striking word, context must tell a bad remix from a blow. Wack is the lemma; its adjective use under this spelling is the plain 'bad' adjective.
- 8Alternative spelling of wack.
The new update made the app slower, which is totally whack.
Critics found the plot twist whack and the dialogue even worse.
Note
The adjective compares with endings, not with more and most: whacker, whackest, as in rappers with the whackest lyrics. It also stands comfortably after a verb, as in that's whack, yo! The same look-alike spelling serves the noun for something bad, and wack remains the main form of the slang word.
- 9
- 10To divide something into shares and distribute them, often used with 'up'.
The crew whacked up the reward as soon as the job was done.
We agreed to whack the proceeds evenly among everyone who helped.
Note
Thieves and scavengers split their takings with this verb, as in to whack the spoils of a robbery. Henry Mayhew heard it in 1851 among London's sewer-hunters, who counted their finds, sold the metal and bones, and then would 'whack' the whole lot, which he flagged as their own term. It is transitive and often takes up: whack up the proceeds.
- 11A share or portion, especially a full or generous one.
Every investor expected a fair whack of the year's profits.
“It’s damned tame, whatever it is, comin’ in here at feedin’ time an’ gettin’ its whack of fish.”
1906, Jack London, White FangNote
A word from old British cant, now somewhat dated. Thackeray, writing in 1848–50, felt it needed a gloss: 'I take my whack at dinner; I mean my share.' Jack London's White Fang and Xavier Herbert's Capricornia use it plainly: an animal gets its whack of fish, and a taxpayer pays his whack towards the school. It usually takes a possessive, followed by of or towards.
- 12To surpass or outdo something; to prove better than a rival or alternative.
For a quiet evening, you can't whack a good village pub.
Her marathon time whacks the county record by nearly a minute.
Similarbeat, surpass, top, better, outdo
Note
A British use that lives mostly in the negative, especially in can't whack it. Steve Cullen's Total Flyfisher (2012) praises Ireland with 'proper fishing, can't whack it!' The phrase is warm praise meaning 'nothing beats it,' and it sounds natural in speech. A positive sentence such as 'her time whacks the record' is possible but much less idiomatic.
- 13The backslash, the character ⟨ \ ⟩ that slants downward from left to right.
Read the path aloud as 'C, colon, whack, users, whack, Sam.'
Put a whack before the quotation mark so the script doesn't break.
Similarbackslash
Note
Programmers and typographers use this slang when reading characters aloud. Dictated, a path such as c:\docs\readme.txt becomes 'c colon whack docs whack readme dot text,' with one quick syllable in place of two. It is spoken shorthand; in documentation and formal writing, backslash is still the word to use.
- 14Phencyclidine, the street drug better known as PCP or angel dust.
By the end of the decade, dealers were cutting the whack with cheaper powders.
She left the club scene after losing two friends to whack.
SimilarPCP
Note
Here whack and its look-alike wack overlap completely, because both spellings carry this disco-era drug name, now dated. In writing about the period, the word needs surrounding context, or readers will hear a blow or a killing instead of the drug.
- 15To eat something hurriedly, with little time spent on it.
She whacked a granola bar between meetings and kept moving.
We barely had time to whack a slice of pizza before the curtain rose.
Similarwolf, bolt, gulp, scoff
Oppositesavor
Note
Singaporean speech gives the verb a second casual sense alongside the 'anyhow whack' verb: here the blow lands on a meal, eaten fast between other things. Outside Singapore, whack a sandwich may sound like hitting it, so the context should make the eating plain.
- 16To attempt something without knowing how to do it, taking on the task spontaneously and without planning.
Nobody on the team had built a website before, so we whacked it over a weekend.
Rather than study the instructions, he chose to whack the whole installation and hope for the best.
Note
This Singlish use is a loan in meaning from Malay hentam, which covers both 'to strike' and 'to do something carelessly.' The English verb took on the careless half. Its signature phrase is anyhow whack: a tutor warns students 'not to anyhow whack' an exam question before knowing the approach. Outside Singapore, the sense may not be understood.
- 17A deal or agreement, especially one settled informally between two parties.
The traders shook hands on the whack and loaded their wagons.
"I'll stay if you will." "Good—that's a whack."
1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Tom SawyerNote
An obsolete Americanism that lived mostly in one closing formula: that's a whack, or it's a whack, said to seal a bargain the way a modern speaker says 'it's a deal.' Mark Twain uses it in 1876 for a pact struck in two lines: 'I'll stay if you will.' 'Good: that's a whack.' Use it only in period dialogue.
- 18A dividing up of money or goods into separate shares; a divvying up.
The crew put off the whack until the captain returned from shore.
At the whack, every man received his portion of the season's earnings.
Note
The share-out itself once had a noun of its own, also written whack-up, but it is now obsolete. Its living relative is the verb whack up, which names the same act of splitting takings. Each resulting portion is a whack in the 'share' sense.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
The origin is uncertain. It was originally Scottish and is probably imitative of the sound of a blow, though it may be compared with Middle English thakken, from Old English þaccian. One later verb sense is likely a semantic loan from the Malay word hentam, meaning to strike or to do something carelessly.