whammy, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whammy n.

[wham v.; note Whammy, a character who can paralyze with a stare in comic strip Li’l Abner]

1. a ‘hex’, an evil influence, the evil eye; usu. in phr. put the whammy on

1939		implied in put the whammy on
1952–3		Mad mag. Dec.–Jan. 4: Dat’s duh evil eye! She’s givin’ you duh whammy!
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 395: Kesey shoots a few whammies their way . . . These bastards and their . . . positioning.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 160: You draw up a chair and give her the old eyeball whammy.
1987		(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 7: A nun could burn holes in you just by looking at you. Talk about giving someone the whammy.

2. a punchline, anything devastating and beyond a similarly powerful response.

1947		J. Lardner ‘This Was Pugilism’ in New Yorker 6 Dec. 82: It was appalling the way the whammy fell upon those folks’.
1958		J.L. Herlihy ‘Pretty on the Bus at Night-time’ in Sleep of Baby Filbertson and Other Stories (1964) 112: A real whammy comes along, a pet goldfish dies in the bowl, or somebody forgets to smile.
1976		Woodward & Bernstein Final Days 297: There had been reverses, a ‘triple whammy,’ Haig conceded, but they had not given up on the vote in the full House.
1989		G. Tate ‘The GOP Throws a Mammy-Jammy’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 100: Mother Tate hit me with another whammy.
1999		Guardian G2 23 July 13: The comedy triple-whammy of Ross, Jack Dee and Julian Clary saves the programme.
2000		Observer Rev. 16 Jan. 1: The cause [...] is the triple whammy of ‘increased affluence, the break-up of relationships and lower rates of marriage.’.

3. spiritual or positive force.

1968

T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 34: A tape drones on in a weird voice, full of Ouija-whammy: ‘. . . the blissful counterstroke . . . a considerable new message.’.

4. (US drugs, also whammie) a portion of a given drug that will induce the desired level of intoxication.

1969

Cressey & Ward Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process 821: He says, ‘No, man, just speed-ball it, man, speed-ball it and just take a little taste.’ So I took me a whammie, and it was out a sight. [Ibid.] 823: After the heroin is portioned out, each person takes himself a ‘whammie.’.

In phrases

double whammy (n.) [best known as the title of US thriller-writer Carl Hiaasen’s 1988 novel, the term (attempting to point up the UK Labour Party threats to the UK economy) was central to the rival Conservative Party’s advertising campaign in the general election of 1992]

a double blow, an extreme problem; an intensifier of sense 2

1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 196: ‘This necklace,’ said Ma Trotter, giving him a double whammy through the lorgnette.
1965		B. Wannan Fair Go, Spinner 70: I told the big mug I’d give him a double whammy on the moush-houser.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 11: I graduated from college two days after Robert Kennedy was shot, two months and three days after Martin Luther King was assassinated, an incredible double whammy.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 102: Hitting Kilby with their so-called ‘double whammy’ or whatever it was.
1997		A. Frewin London Blues 31: But this was a double whammy: two days after Jack Kennedy got it, Oswald got it too!
2000		Indep. Rev. 13 May 10: Saul Bellow has, famously, just managed a stylish double whammy: fatherhood and a luminous new novel-stroke-memoir at 84.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 224: ‘[That] will give us the double whammy when we put Confidential in the shit’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 122: [T]he double whammy of [Hurricane] Katrina and the recession.

put the whammy on (v.)

1. to cause problems for; to condemn.

1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 4 Dec. [synd. col.] Six hundred Westchester women put the whammy on those radio romances, calling them ‘insulting.’.
1952		N.Y. Journal-American cited in W. Winchell On Broadway n.d. [synd. col.] WW is moving to put a sure-fire whammy on Stevenson’s campaign [etc.].
1982		M. Braun Judas Tree (1983) 42: You’re liable to put the whammy on the wrong man and wind up in hot water.

2. (US, also whammy) to influence, to ‘hex’.

1940		J.R. Tunis Kid from Tomkinsville 151: Interest round the field now centered in the Kid’s chances for a no-hit game [...] On the bench everyone realized it too, but everyone kept discreetly quiet on account of the Whammy. Mustn’t put the Whammy on him!
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 238: Even when Runyon devoted a full column to ridiculing the whole Man-Mountain build-up [...] it didn’t really put the whammy on us.
1956		‘James Updyke’ [W.R. Burnett] It’s Always Four O’Clock 68: ‘All we need is a flat now,’ I grumbled. ‘Don’t whammy me,’ yelled Walt, sore. ‘I got no spare’.
1962		B. Veeck Veeck — as in Wreck 45: [A] wrestling manager who was supposed to be able to put a whammy on his boy’s opponents.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 67: Don’t put your whammy on me, Lesser, you.

3. (US black) to hit hard.

1953

L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 4: Lamp the Kitty with the King Kong physique, I most believe he’ll put the whammy on that horse skin.