whap
verbEtymology Onomatopoeic; variant of whop.
1
US To strike hard and suddenly.
2
US 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 […]
- TO WHAP OVER. To turn over. (New England.)1848, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett & Welford, page 379:
4 more examples
- And at last, as they wrestled and whapped together, they fell headlong in the stream.1902, Henry Van Dyke, “The Mill”, in The Blue Flower, New York: Scribner, page 65:
- Screen doors whapped throughout the night […]1989, John Irving, chapter 9, in A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, page 524:
- She whapped down on the floor.
- The fish whapped over.