Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also whack into) to hit.

1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 20: Blast my eyes! if I don’t whack him.
1774		M. Shackleton ‘To Sarah Shackleton’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 368: And, prithee, very soon have done / With whacking Mary Shackleton.
1787		‘Hush Cat from under the Table’ Songs (publ. Monaghan) 4: And ever since that she never cry’d stop, / But whacking the cat from under the table.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 305: I will lend a hand to whack ’em.
1832		in Egan Bk of Sports 155: Jack Baker whacked his own father.
1842		Egan ‘Bould Yeoman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 137: But said he I will not down you, if you will but disburse / Your rowdy with me, yeoman – I’m content to whack your purse!
1855		J.S. Coyne Pippins and Pies 29: The three Bumpsteads, who whacked the three biggest boys in the school one morning.
1857		Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 Aug. 3/2: He got in again through the window and whacked me.
c.1868		‘Dizzy’s Lament’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 105: I dreamt that I was whacked with a birch.
1869		‘International Boat Race’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 146: He wack’d the moke till he made him start.
1879		G.R. Sims Dagonet Ballads 104: ’Twas a lie; bless your soul, why he’d whacked her and kicked her night, morning, and noon.
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 9 June 7/4: In three rounds he was done for. After that the rest let me alone, for the chap I’d whacked was reckoned the best man among them.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 111: If everybody don’t go just so he whacks their heads off.
1892		Albert Chevalier ‘Wot Cher!’ 🎵 Pals start whackin’ him, when down he drops, Someone says he wasn’t made to go.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 94: Whack, [...] a blow, to beat.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 20 Oct. 37: I whacked him as hard as I could with an empty football bladder.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 Sept. 3/2: I then go home and whack her / [...] / It’s the only way to keep a blanky tart .
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 19: Sid was whacked, but, as he explained, he wore a newspaper tactically adjusted during the transaction.
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 241: Down comes Fuzzy, ’n’ whacks into it agin.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 6 July 12/7: He did thump and whack her awful. / Beat her body black and blue.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 41: [He] said he didn’t think he had ever seen such a fine day, and whacked his leg with his stick.
1938		N. Lindsay Age Of Consent 217: She was whacking at Cora with a ragged length of paling.
1947		N. Marsh Final Curtain (1958) 64: ‘You can’t whack me,’ she shrieked.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 24: She’s whacking into the old girl like the devil.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 323: The bleeding screw [...] w’acks ’im over the arse.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 24: The slag [...] start grassing even before they’ve been whacked.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 104: If I ever hear you say another bad word, I’m gonna whack your behind.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 214: All I did was see the motherfucker whack that sucker.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 129: She’d have given anything to whack him.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 189: He’d whack any man that came near her.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Jasper followed him into the bathroom and whacked him again.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 19: ‘You didn’t have to whack him like that’.

2. (also whack out) to defeat in a competition, to outdo.

1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 14/4: Though you had the King’s army, and we were only a lot of farmers, we whacked you!
1909		G.R. Bacchus Maudie 52: ‘Youi’ve fair whacked me this time, petlet,’ he gasped.
1945		(con. 1928) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 90: ‘Going to beat everybody’ [...] ‘Going to whack everybody. Got a new punch like Tunney,’ Johnny added darkly.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 35: I’ll get you trained so that you whack every man in the Free World.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 85: She whacks him out in cards, tennis, skiing, you name it.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 147: Ah you can’t whack the oul songs, girls. Such lovely words.
1982		J. Sullivan ‘A Touch of Glass’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I’m a great fan of the Byzantine period myself. I don’t think you can whack ’em you know.
1999		Indep. Rev. 25 Sept. 1: Watson’s gonna get whacked.

3. to criticize.

1905

A. Bierce letter 3 Dec. in Pope Letters of Ambrose Bierce (1922) 113: Yes, I was sorry to whack London, for whom, in his character as author, I have high admiration, and in that of publicist and reformer, a deep contempt. Even if he had been a personal friend I should have whacked him.

4. to hit in fig. sense, e.g. to sentence to prison.

1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 138: I seemed to get whacked every time as I went the bundle.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:1 20: You’ll never whack her up more’n seven knots.
1952		K. Amis letter 4 Oct. in Leader (2000) 294: Do whack these 2 requirements to me soon.
1961		H.S. Thompson letter 10 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 292: That bastard Ed the mailman whacked me with a bill for $76.
1972		J.B. Keane Letters of Irish Parish Priest 54: I don’t mind a person having a drink and a bit of a sing-song but this whacks all.
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 161: Then I whacked him with Greenan and Magro.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 144: Trepanian whacked Joe with the expected maximum of three years.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 5: He’d whack it all in a extra big Head bag and cart it up through Priory Wood to Freddie Woan’s.
2016		N.G. Van Cleve Crook County 171: The judge [...] is going to whack you so you better stop playing games’.

5. (US) to lie.

1906

J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 163: whack, v. To lie. ‘He’s a-whacking all right.’.

6. (also whack out) to murder, to kill; also fig.

1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 73: If you get whacked, or get shot at, or get in a beef, it will be bad luck.
1959		‘Paul Merchant’ ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] Sit tight, whoor, an’ nobody gets whacked.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 25: Here was the biggest man in television getting ready to whack out his best friend.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 39: Colored lady whacked out her husband [...] Dropped a fifty-pound watermelon on his head.
1987		(con. 1970s) J. Pistone Donnie Brasco (2006) 326: Find out. Whoever gives us the snitch, we’ll pay. Then we’ll whack out the snitch.
1989		Pileggi & Scorsese Goodfellas [film script] 53: You got out of line, you got whacked.
1999		Guardian Rev. 20 Aug. 11: Notorious B.I.G. got whacked.
2000		Guardian Rev. 4 Mar. 3: I tried to whack myself out with pills... All I got was sick.
2003		C. Stella Charlie Opera 64: Why the fuck a pair of detectives are talking qwith a guy I’m supposed to whack out.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 235: That’s two girls you whacked. What’s up with you.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 16: They whack a guy, leave the body so it’ll be found.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] The police think the Red Devils found and whacked him.
2017		67 ‘Waps’ 🎵 Don’t make a phone-call, get a man whacked.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘Half North Manhattan wants to whack us’.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘[H]e has no reason to want to whack the head of the Service’s steering committee’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Crime 101’ in Broken 70: [A] video of herself whacking some guy.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 113: ‘Everyone was tense, always worried about getting whacked’.

7. (US, also whack off) lit. or fig., to cut or chop.

1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 43: It’s pretty tough when a man will take a hatchet and whack his arm off.
1944		E. Wilson 20 Mar. [synd. col.] Let’s talk about her losing weight [...] ‘How‘d you happen to whack it off?’ I asked.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 203: whack [...] 2. to cut (hair).
1994		J. Lasenby Dead Mans Head 152: Uncle Ted [...] whacked him off another slice.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 10: ‘FUCK YOU, PIG!’ said one disciple, grabbing his sword and whacking the head off a Roman Centurion.

8. to masturbate.

1964		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 523: I was tooling along, / Just a-whacking my prick.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 188: It was whacking your pud.
1988		‘Victoria Parker’ Incest Schoolgirls 🌐 Mr. Davidson whacked his cock, pumped his prick, drubbed his dick.
1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Wack [...] 4. (verb) To beat your meat; to jack off; to masturbate (male).
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 70: A horn honked [...] Pete jumped and looked around guiltily, as if he’d been whacking.

9. (US drugs) to dilute or ‘cut’ a narcotic.

1971		R. Woodley Dealer 69: Coke will only take so much whackin. It may be good coke, but it’s whacked to the bone by the time you get a twenty-dollar spoon.
1979		H. Feldman et al. Angel Dust 179: The drug is ‘cut’ or ‘wacked’ with up to fifty per cent of an additional nonintoxicating substance.
1989		(con. 1982–6) T. Williams Cocaine Kids (1990) 36: He produces a baggie filled with yellowish powder [...] and points to the white powdery lactose that he ‘whacks’ (mixes) it with to get shake.
2016		Barer et al. Betrayal in Blue 143: [W]hat we had tested 94 percent pure cocaine. At that purity rate I was able to ‘step on it,’ ‘cut it,’ or ‘whack it’ quite a bit.

10. (Scot.) to tolerate.

2021

A. Parks April Dead 230: ‘Cannae whack it [i.e. the sight of blood], can you?’ he said. ‘Never could, not since we were wee boys.’.