wham
intjEtymology Onomatopoeic, representing the sound of an object being slammed against something.
1
Used to indicate the sound of a forceful blow, an explosion, etc.
- Wham! The truck hit the wall.
- "Come here, kid, I got something for you." Then wham and he lit on his hands and knees beside the track. Nick rubbed his eye. There was a big bump coming up.1925, Ernest Hemingway, “The Battler”, in In Our Time: Stories, New York, N.Y.: Boni & Liveright, →OCLC, page 65:
2 more examples
- The second matador slipped, and the bull caught him through the belly and he hung onto the horn with one hand and held the other right against the place, and the bull rammed him wham against the barrier and the horn came out, and he lay in the sand, and then got up like crazy drunk and tried to slug the men carrying him away and yelled for his sword, but he fainted.1924, Ernest Hemingway, chapter IX, in In Our Time: Stories, New York, N.Y.: Boni & Liveright, published 1925, →OCLC, page 107:
- I was off duty, minding my own business, walking across the Avenue of the Americas at Forty-fifth Street on my way to Charlie Rothstein's when I heard a gun go off. Wham! it roared, not more than twenty feet from me, and then, in quick succession, wham—wham!1950 July 22, Ferguson Findley [pseudonym; Charles Weiser Frey], “Waterfront [Chapter I]”, in Louis Ruppel, editor, Collier’s, volume 136, number 4, Springfield, Oh.: Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 16, column 1; republished New York, N.Y.: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951, →OCLC, page 1:
2
Used to indicate something dramatic, sudden, and unanticipated has occurred.
- Our relationship was going smoothly and then wham! Out of nowhere he told me he was leaving me for another woman.
- Wham! Overnight he [Dwight D. Eisenhower] became a warmonger.1952 September 22, “Editorial: Since Stevenson [i.e., Adlai Stevenson II] Prefers ‘Compromise’, Foreign Policy is Squarely in the Campaign”, in Henry R[obinson] Luce, editor, Life, volume 33, number 12, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 30, column 1:
1 more example
- In myself I've come to notice that aging comes in spurts. […] I'll look the exact same way for a decade, and then—wham!—God hits the progeria switch and for two years the downhill plunge begins anew. And then it stops again.2008 August, Douglas Coupland, “40 on the Outside, 30 on the Inside: My Theory of How Men Really Age”, in Stephen Perrine, editor, Best Life, volume V, number 6, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 77, column 1:
- Derived terms
- wham, bam, thank you ma'am