Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Exceptionally large.
- adverb Used as an intensive.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Very large; thumping: as, a whopping big trout.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
exceptionally large orgreat - verb Present participle of
whop .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (used informally) very large
- adverb extremely
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Their distinctive whooping call is instantly recognizable, hence the name whopping crane, and if you catch a look at one on the wing, they are a majesty to behold.
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We had to pay rent, which was as I recall a whopping $180 per month.
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We had to pay rent, which was as I recall a whopping $180 per month.
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We had to pay rent, which was as I recall a whopping $180 per month.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Money, Part Two 2009
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"It is estimated that government will be coining a whopping R258 million a year from the additional fee on the country's 8.6 million registered motor vehicle owners," said DA spokesman on transport,
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Spread out over 7 years since we invaded, that works out to be about $100.57 billion PER YEAR out of an average annual federal budget of roughly $3.2 - $3.4 TRILLION ($3200 billion - $3400 billion) or in other words ... a whopping 2. 9% of every federal dollar spent over the last 7 years.
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Spread out over 7 years since we invaded, that works out to be about $100.57 billion PER YEAR out of an average annual federal budget of roughly $3.2 - $3.4 TRILLION ($3200 billion - $3400 billion) or in other words ... a whopping 2. 9% of every federal dollar spent over the last 7 years.
Denver Post: News: Breaking: Local 007Ranch 2010
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Spread out over 7 years since we invaded, that works out to be about $100.57 billion PER YEAR out of an average annual federal budget of roughly $3.2 - $3.4 TRILLION ($3200 billion - $3400 billion) or in other words ... a whopping 2. 9% of every federal dollar spent over the last 7 years.
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As if having to recall a whopping 180,865 vehicles in the UK from the Auris, Avensis, Aygo, Corolla, iQ, Verso and Yaris ranges for having dodgy accelerator pedals wasn't embarassing enough, it's now announced a global recall of its third-generation Prius due to rubbish brakes.
Crave at CNET UK Rory Reid 2010
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Apr. 30 -- Cass County health officials are grappling with a sharp rise in pertussis -- commonly known as whopping cough -- confirming five cases in the past six months, including one that resulted in death.
yarb commented on the word whopping
Presumably "to whop" is to exude or be possessed of bigness.
November 9, 2007
yarb commented on the word whopping
Not to be confused with the place in London called Wapping.
November 9, 2007
trivet commented on the word whopping
What about when you whop someone upside the head?
November 9, 2007
uselessness commented on the word whopping
It's a gerund from the verb "to whop," which means to produce a noise like a hundred thousand people saying "whop." And trivet, isn't that whup?
November 9, 2007
trivet commented on the word whopping
Nope, I come from a long line of whoppers. My mother used to call biscuits in a can whop biscuits because you had to whop 'em good to get them open.
November 9, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
No, no. It's whomp. You whomp someone upside the head.
November 9, 2007
mollusque commented on the word whopping
There's a subtle distinction here. My Mom always let me whomp the biscuits open. But she would whop me upside the head with a hard-boiled egg to crack it.
November 9, 2007
skipvia commented on the word whopping
Whatever, opening biscuit cartons like that was one of my very favorite things to do when I was little. I had forgotten all about it until now. Nice recovered memory...
November 9, 2007
yarb commented on the word whopping
No no no. Whomp is the noise made by a fell beast, and whup is what you do upside someone's head. I have never opened a biscuit tin in any way but the conventional, so I'll let you have whop for this.
November 9, 2007
skipvia commented on the word whopping
Also see whupping.
November 9, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
What if you whomp someone upside the head with a fell beast that's just been whopped with a can of biscuits? Then what?
November 9, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word whopping
Well, the fell beast makes more of a whumpf, first of all. The real question is whether the fell beast would whup, or whop, the biscuit tin open. Or would it whump?
I humbly suggest that:
1. fell beasts whumpf (and do that screechy thing we never found a word for--see whomp)
2. one is whupped on the bee-hind, or upside the head (never downside)
3. one's biscuits may be whomped open, and
4. whop is the verb form of what you leave behind in Burger King.
November 9, 2007
yarb commented on the word whopping
I'm not sure a fell beast would know how to open a biscuit tin. It would probably try whopping, but in the end it would have to ask a kindly-disposed nazgul for help, in its inimitable screechy voice.
November 9, 2007
sionnach commented on the word whopping
What if the fell beast had already eaten? maybe a full fell beast would use a different, less violent strategy for getting at the biscuits?
November 9, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
And then if the full fell beast failed to whomp open the can of biscuits and was refused by a less-than-kindly-disposed nazgul, would it whomp said nazgul upside the...do nazguls have heads?
November 9, 2007
yarb commented on the word whopping
I think if you want to whup a nazgul, it has to be upside the hood.
November 9, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
Of course. What was I thinking?
November 9, 2007
trivet commented on the word whopping
Wouldn't the fell beast just eat the biscuits, can and all? I'm thinking the kitchen is not his forte.
November 9, 2007
trivet commented on the word whopping
But if he did open the biscuits, he would whop them good and the can would split open with a pleasant wumpf.
November 9, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word whopping
Or, the fell beast would just, you know, feast on the flesh of the biscuits. Or it could screech and the biscuit tin would just pop open out of sheer terror.
Nazgul aside.
November 9, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
Do nazguls have eardrums?
I suppose not, if they don't have heads....
November 10, 2007
yarb commented on the word whopping
If you think of the scenes in LoTR movie where Frodo wears the ring, that must be what it's like all the time for the Nazgul, i.e. everything sounds like underwater porpoise noises. Porpoises receive sound through their lower jaw, so perhaps this is also true of Nazgul.
Perhaps Nazgul are equipped with monkey lips and melons?
November 10, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word whopping
All I know is, if you are not a man, and you stick a sword in a Nazgul's lack-of-face, you might actually kill the f***er. What that says about eardrums, melons, or biscuit tins is beyond me.
November 10, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
And that should put all of this to rest. ;-)
November 10, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word whopping
Yeah, I'm a total thread-killer. *sigh* :(
November 10, 2007
mollusque commented on the word whopping
You could have cowhoperated, but Noooo. :-)
November 10, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
No, I wouldn't call you a thread-killer, chained_bear. Look at it as having the gift of putting in the last word. :-)
Anyway, look! We're still posting!
November 11, 2007
oroboros commented on the word whopping
There's enough postage here to send whopping to Mars and back again!! :oD
November 11, 2007
sionnach commented on the word whopping
I'm coming late to this whole 'what would the fell beast say?' debate. But I'd just like to say that consonant clusters like 'mp' and 'mpf' have a kind of warmth and substance to them that seems entirely inconsistent with the non-corporeal aspects generally associated with, for instance, the oomph-lacking Nazgul. So I doubt very much that a Nazgul could whomp anything.
November 11, 2007
reesetee commented on the word whopping
Good point, sionnach. But biscuit tins and, dare I say it--heads--do seem to have warmth and substance enough to be whomped. I stand by my whomps. :-)
November 11, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word whopping
Well, remember that it isn't the Nazgul that makes the whumpf noise with its wings--it's the fell beasts that the Nazgul ride. (BTW, Nazgul is both singular and plural, yes? Or am I using it wrong?) And though the fell beasts don't look particularly warm, their *wings* do. They seem to resemble bat wings, and bats, as you know, are warm.
I actually like bats a lot. Not rabid ones though.
November 11, 2007