whap
See also: WHAP
English
Etymology 1
Onomatopoeic; variant of whop.
Noun
whap (plural whaps)
- A blow; a hit; a whop.
Verb
whap (third-person singular simple present whaps, present participle whapping, simple past and past participle whapped)
- (US, transitive) To strike hard and suddenly.
- (US, intransitive) To throw oneself quickly, or by an abrupt motion; to turn suddenly.
- 1844, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Judge Haliburton’s Yankee Stories, Part Two, Chapter 22, Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, pp. 179-180,
- He wears his hat a little a one side, rakish-like, whaps his cane down ag’in the pavement hard, as if he intended to keep things in their place, swaggers a few, as if he though he had a right to look big […]
- 1848, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett & Welford, p. 379,
- TO WHAP OVER. To turn over. (New England.)
- 1902, Henry Van Dyke, “The Mill” in The Blue Flower, New York: Scribner, p. 65,
- And at last, as they wrestled and whapped together, they fell headlong in the stream.
- 1989, John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 9, p. 524,
- Screen doors whapped throughout the night […]
- She whapped down on the floor.
- The fish whapped over.
- 1844, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Judge Haliburton’s Yankee Stories, Part Two, Chapter 22, Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, pp. 179-180,
Interjection
whap
- The sound of sudden blow or hit.
- 1989 June 5, The Canberra Times, page 10, column 2:
- Whap, Biff, Ooooof, Sock, Pow, Zok! Batman is back. Gotham City is again leaving its law and order in the hands of a man who wears plastic underpants over his tights.
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Derived terms
- awhape
Etymology 2
Variant of whaup.
Noun
whap (plural whaps)
- (Scotland, obsolete) The curlew, Numenius arquata; a whaup.
References
- whap in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913