Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a beating, a thrashing.

1818		Morn. Post 29 July 3/5: He wanted a good whapping and he got it. The battle latest 40 minutes.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 381: I should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of ’em.
1853		H. Hayman Pawnbroker’s Daughter 156: ‘Father married an Irish ’oman last week [...] and she wops us awful.’ [...] It occurred to him that there might be another ‘wopping’ due.
1855		‘Julia’ Tit for Tat 109: There, don’t begin to cry, or I’ll give you a whopping for that !
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 237/2: So no whopping I got.
1877		Sussex Advertiser 23 June 4/6: My father was a bad ’un, no mistake; so I must take the whopping as it comes.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 72: All you got after sich a lot o’ trouble was a woppin’ with a belt.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 13 Apr. 438: Whopping is the school term for a thrashing.
1922		John O’London’s Weekly 7 Jan. 459/2: The leathern-hearted turnkey of the Fleet Prison was not a man to recall the whopping of a coal-heaver with a sigh [...] he had seen too much violence.
1938		D. Runyon ‘It Comes Up Mud’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 539: My papa will be so angry he will give me a whopping.
2009		R.E. Woodruff You’re Gonna Bury Moma Who 6: You settle down now, I can still give you a whopping.
2011		D. Merritt Blossom 283: ‘I ought to give you a whopping.’ ‘You can whop me if you want to, if it’ll make you feel better. I don’t care’.