whopping
English
editEtymology
editPronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈ(h)wɒpɪŋ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈ(h)wɑpɪŋ/
Audio (General American): (file) - Rhymes: -ɒpɪŋ
- Hyphenation: whop‧ping
Adjective
editwhopping (not comparable)
- (colloquial) Exceptionally great or large.
- It weighed a whopping 700 pounds when it was full.
- 1852, Henry Howard Paul, “Old Dan of Connecticut River”, in Dashes of American Humour, London: Piper Brothers and Co., Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 37:
- [H]e went his way rejoicing—an eccentric, sun-browned, good-natured, athletic man, with no strong affection for anything except his rifle, and a predilection for relating "whopping" stories of his travels, and incidents of adventure which no mortal since the days of Baron Munchausen could have experienced under any possible circumstances.
- 1852, Jerome V[an] C[roninsfield] Smith, “Smyrna”, in Turkey and the Turks: Or, Travels in Turkey, Boston, Mass.: F. Gleason's Publishing Hall, corner of Bromfield and Tremont Streets, →OCLC, page 83, column 2:
- There are runners in abundance who intercept strangers, strongly recommending certain lodgings as being desirable on account of location and economy, for which they get a handsome percentage. Abraham told a whopping lie to secure our patronage, by saying, our countryman, a gentleman who had preceded us by about a week, had left special directions for him to wait upon us. Such politeness led at once to an engagement. However, he was subsequently dismissed in disgrace.
- 2009, John Kricher, “For the Love of Biodiversity (and Stable Ecosystems?)”, in The Balance of Nature: Ecology’s Enduring Myth, Princeton, N.J., Woodstock, Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, pages 170–171:
- Because of its great length, the snake [a pit viper, Lachesis muta] has a long striking range and is alleged to, on occasion, strike without any warning (unlike a rattlesnake, whose audible vibrating tail signals that the animal is agitated). Long hypodermic fangs deliver a whopping dose of venom.
- 2013, Agnieszka Biskup, “Forcing the Issue”, in Jennifer Besel, editor, The Gripping Truth about Forces and Motion (Fact Finders. LOL Physical Science.), North Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press, →ISBN, page 13:
- Weight is actually a measurement of the gravitational pull on an object. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, Earth's gravity is pulling you down with 100 pounds of force. […] On our massive Sun, you'd weigh a whopping 2,800 pounds!
- 2017 March 1, Anthony Zurcher, “Trump addresses Congress: A kinder, gentler president”, in BBC News[1], archived from the original on 5 June 2017:
- Defence spending, as promised last week, is headed for a $54bn boost. Now Mr [Donald] Trump has revealed the size of his planned infrastructure programme, and it's a whopping $1 trillion.
- 2022, StrategyWiki[2]:
- Stay on the balance lift until the rope breaks, and score a whopping 1000 points! Be prepared to jump at the last moment to save your life.
Usage notes
editIn current use, this adjective usually precedes a number.
Synonyms
edit- See Thesaurus:large
Translations
editexceptionally great or large
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Adverb
editwhopping (not comparable)
- (colloquial) Exceedingly, extremely, very.
- 1962 September 28, “Shall We Dance? Thud!”, in Life, volume 53, number 13, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 57:
- Is she doing a tango? A buck and wing? A soulful modern ballet? No, Joan Crawford is having a whopping good time learning judo, the Japanese art of self-defense, for her new movie, The Caretakers. Joan plays a nurse who uses judo holds to subdue unruly patients in a mental hospital.
- 2000, James Riordan, When the Guns Fall Silent, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:
- Doss and I run the house, cooking dinner—whopping great pots of stew and rice, sewing and darning clothes, ironing, bathing the kids, blacking the grate, scrubbing the doorstep, running errands.
Synonyms
editVerb
editwhopping
- present participle and gerund of whop.
Noun
editwhopping (plural whoppings)
- A beating.
- 1854 May 20, “The Monitorial System of Harrow School. From the Literary Gazette.”, in E[liakim] Littel, editor, Littel’s Living Age, volume V (Second Series; volume XLI from the start), number DXXII, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa.: Littel, Son and Company, →OCLC, page 367:
- When I saw Dr. Vaughan, he was excessively kind, and told me that he was exceedingly sorry that I should have got into a mess with any of the monitors, and that, as far as he heard, I was to blame in what I had said, and so he should advise me to take the whopping, as there was no cowardice in taking anything from a legal power.
- 2013 April, Frederic H. Finnis, chapter 1, in Turning Back the Pages 1993–1923, Victoria, B.C.: FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 6:
- At least this taught me to hate violence which to me translated into thick ears or sound whoppings on the behind.
Synonyms
editFurther reading
edit- “whopping”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, retrieved 24 July 2017.
Categories:
- English terms suffixed with -ing
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/ɒpɪŋ
- Rhymes:English/ɒpɪŋ/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English colloquialisms
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- en:Size