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whack

Pronunciation: /ˈwæk/

The English word “whack” has 17 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The sound of a heavy strike.
  2. The strike itself.
  3. The stroke itself, regardless of its successful impact.
  4. An attempt, a chance, a turn, a go, originally an attempt to beat someone or something.
  5. A share, a portion, especially a full share or large portion.
  6. A whack-up: a division of an amount into separate whacks, a divvying up.
  7. A deal, an agreement.
  8. A harmful outcome or repercussion.
  9. PCP, phencyclidine (also wack).
  10. The backslash, ⟨ \ ⟩.

verb

  1. To hit, slap or strike.
  2. To assassinate, bump off.
  3. To share or parcel out (often with up).
  4. To beat convincingly; to thrash.
  5. To surpass; to better.
  6. To attempt something despite not knowing how to do it; to take on a task spontaneously and carelessly without planning.
  7. To eat something hurriedly.

Etymology

Uncertain. Originally Scottish; probably onomatopoeic, but compare Middle English thakken, from Old English þaccian (whence Modern thwack by conflation with whack). Sense 6 of the verb is likely a semantic loan from Malay hentam (“to strike; to do something carelessly”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.