whopping

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
19
Words With Friends
22
Letters
8
Pronunciation
/ˈ(h)wɒpɪŋ/
See all 2 pronunciations
/ˈ(h)wɒpɪŋ/ · /ˈ(h)wɑpɪŋ/

Definition of whopping

4 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. (colloquial, not-comparable)Exceptionally great or large.
    “It weighed a whopping 700 pounds when it was full.”
    “[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.”
    “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.”
    “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.”
    “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!”
See all 4 definitions

adj

  1. (colloquial, not-comparable)Exceptionally great or large.
    “It weighed a whopping 700 pounds when it was full.”
    “[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.”
    “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.”
    “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.”
    “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!”

adv

  1. (colloquial, not-comparable)Exceedingly, extremely, very.
    “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.”
    “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.”

verb

  1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of whop.

noun

  1. A beating.
    “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.”
    “At least this taught me to hate violence which to me translated into thick ears or sound whoppings on the behind.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

whop (verb) + -ing.

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