Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a notably large object, or creature.

1711		N. Ward Don Quixote II 317: And since your Worship loves a Strapper, / She’ll fit your Turn, for she’s a Whopper.
1714		‘Travelling Tinker’ in D’Urfey Pills V 195: But well may’t Leak, for I have found / A Hole in’t that’s a whopper.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 190: A wopper — a big one, whether man, woman, or thing.
1825		J.K. Paulding John Bull in America 297: ‘Isn’t he a whopper?’ continued he, pointing to the carcass in the corner.
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 159: Good Lord! what a whapper! where did you meet with that old fellow?
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 286: We had to pass some whoppers, which would have satisfied any reasonable man.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 70: I reckon I have a heart big enough for you all; it’s a whapper.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 98: Murphy made a well-feigned struggle with a heavy fish. ‘By this and that he’s a whopper!’ cried Murphy.
1844		New Sporting Mag. (London) Dec. 396: [of a boar] Tally-ho! there he goes! what a whopper! as big as a donkey, by Jove!
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 127: Captain, you have but one fault, but that I must say’s a wopper.
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I 36: What do you think of this case? Ain’t it a whopper?
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 154/1: I’ve often seed as many as a hundred rats at once, and they’re woppers in the sewers, I can tell you.
c.1870		‘Downfall of Chignons’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 149: Madame Rachel has worn such a wopper ’tis said.
1882		County Paper (Oregon, MO) 15 Sept. 2/6: Such phrases as [...] trim one’s jacket [...] in a horn [...] that’s a whopper.
1889		J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 282: When I saw that whopper on the end of my line, blest if it didn’t quite take me aback.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 12 Apr. 3/2: We’ll boil in the bucket such a whopper of a duff.
1895		Mirror of Life 7 Sept. 11/4: This week we have to chronicle a fight between the Kingsland Whopper and the Dalston Maggot.
1898		Kipling ‘In Ambush’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 33: ‘Did you see him?’ [i.e. a fox] said Beetle. ‘I almost put my hand on him. Wasn’t he a wopper!’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 141: I suppose you drop across some whoppers of snakes in your rounds?
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘Poet and the Peasant’ in Strictly Business (1915) 75: Gosh! but it’s a whopper.
1919		Wodehouse Damsel in Distress (1961) 90: ‘That’s the first hornet I seen this year,’ he said pointing. Maud felt a little damped. ‘Haven’t you been listening, Albert?’ ‘Oh, yes, m’lady! Ain’t he a wopper, too?’.
1929		J. Sale Tree Named John 130: By Golly! What a whopper!
1935		G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade 85: Look at that whopper, Norm!
1941		V. Hodgson Diaries (1999) 20 Mar. 144: Very bad blitz last night, but only guns for us – but they were whoppers.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 116: Corks, what a whopper!
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 232: We’ve got a whopper of a program laid out for you.
1979		Lette & Carey Puberty Blues 49: [of a fish] The bell went just as Mr Fairburn was hauling in his ‘whopper.’.
1987		‘Victoria Parker’ Pay for Play Cheerleaders 🌐 She wore a tight white vest [...] it pulled tightly against her big teenette tits, two whoppers that bobbled like ripe grapefruits.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 5: She’d just started her period and it was a whopper.
2005		Mad mag. Apr. 18: Last month’s electric bill was a whopper.

2. a particularly gross lie; also a lying person.

1715		‘Nickydemus Ninnyhammer’ Homer in a nut-shell 26: What Front of Brass, or Copper / Could boldly trump up such a Whopper?
1832		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 8 n.p.: ‘That will be a whopper.’ ‘Well, it will not be the first whopper you’ve told’.
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. I 34: ‘Poetical license,’ as the editors call it when they’ve told a whopper.
1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 17: He talked about delishis froots, but then it uz a wopper all / The holl on’t’s mud.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Sept. 2/6: Hevings forgive you [...] for telling sich a whopper.
1856		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Tales of College Life 26: My eyes! ain’t that a whopper, neither!
1866		Wild Boys of London I 125/2: ‘No, I ain’t,’ cried Jack, indignantly; ‘and don’t you tell such a whopper.’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 647: Whapper or whopper, a slang term not unknown to England in the sense of a big lie.
1875		Auckland Eve. Star (Supp.) 30 Oct. 6/2: If I put the finishing toucher, I shall be evidently telling a tremendous whopper.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 June 2/4: ‘Big lies?’ ‘Yes—the worst old whoppers you ever heard’ .
1884		M.V. Fuller Mrs Rasher’s Curtain Lectures 95: I told a prodigious whopper about our leaving so suddenly.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 10 May11/1: I said the whole tarnation yarn / Was one tarnation whopper!
1891		in Punch 11 Apr. 172: Nora (to herself). KROGSTAD’s card! I must tell another whopper!
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 95: Whopper, a great lie.
1895		Mirror of Life 9 Feb. 6/3: Both these whoppers [...] pose as philanthropists. What they give away is nothing to nobody.
1900		Sporting Times 6 Jan. 1/2: You know well that I tell no whoppers.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 20 Nov. 4/7: By gum, you’re a good liar, old chap [...] you got some whoppers off in those outback letters.
1911		Gem 28 Oct. 16: ‘Yaas, wathah! Woll out the woppahs,’ said Arthur Augustus sarcastically.
1928		J.P. McEvoy Showgirl 97: I suppose I could start off and tell you some little ones and gradually lead up to some whoppers.
1939		E.F. Benson Trouble for Lucia (1984) 10: Telling the most awful whoppers about the tigers he’d shot.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 13: whopper (1791), denoting any large object, but more especially a particularly big lie.
1942		in W.C. Fields By Himself (1974) 242: Did you ever hear such a whopper as that?
1958		Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 14: Pearson sa he once found 2/6 in the lining but i expect that was a woper he always tells them.
1961		T. Ronan Only a Short Walk 14: ‘I think it opens at half-past eight.’ This was a whopper; it wouldn’t be open until the ropes were cast off.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 57: He’d never remember all the phony parts, she’d catch him in whoppers.
2002		Indep. 13 Feb. 5: Naomi Campbell accused of ‘telling whoppers’ in her claim for damages.
2016		Mail & Guardian (SA) 16 Apr. [Intrnet] If you are going to lie, then lie big - Goebbels would be proud of these whoppers.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] It might have been the biggest lie of my life. And I’d spent a lifetime telling whoppers to myself.

3. a notably large person; also as adj.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Whapper, a large man or woman.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1831		Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 21: Vot a vopper!
1847		J.M. Field Drama in Pokerville 164: A ‘fifteen pound’ is a ‘whopper’ to be sure – a ‘fine child.’.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 Oct. 3/2: Eliza Higgins [...] was severely and savagely attacked [...] by Mary Kennedy, alias ‘the whopper’.
1866		Broad Arrow Jack 6: ‘He will be a whopper!’ said Wobbles.
1899		Boy’s Own Paper 4 Mar. 364: ‘Isn’t he a whopper?’ somebody whispered. [...] ‘He’s a giant, and no mistake,’ said Browne.
1921		(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 5: We poke up and see a whopper nigger eating plum pudding.
1927		P. O’Donnell Islanders (1933) 161: ‘You are a whopper,’ Ruth enthused.
1965		B. Wannan Fair Go, Spinner 88: One old-timer describing a publican’s wife said: ‘She was a whopper.’.
1981		Aus. Women’s Wkly 30 Dec. 130: What a whopper I’d have been had I not been having all that exercise.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 14: Our Billy. Fucking whopper and then some.

4. a notably heavy blow; cit. 1892 implies a painful fall.

1823		Devizes & Wilts. Gaz. 21 Aug. 3/4: Sampson [...] went to work again and let fly a ‘vopper’ on Aby’s thorax, which he followed up with a second touch [...] on his now distorted mug.
1841		‘Scavenger’s Ball’ Dublin Comic Songster 11: He gave him a topper – och hone, sich a whopper, / He smashed’d all the teeth that he had in his jaws.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 55/1: Punch. (With his cudgel.) That’s a wopper (He knocks him out of his senses).
1892		in Punch 26 Nov. 243: Take care, my John, you don’t come down a whopper!
1895		T.W. Connor [perf. Little Tich] ‘All Over the Shop’ 🎵 Got a whopper on the ‘boke’ — couldn't see the other bloke.
1974		D. Jenkins Dead Solid Perfect 41: [B]efore he could straighten up, Bad Hair caught him with an uppercut whopper.
1981		G. Young Slow Boats to China (1983) 235: I’ve fallen a whopper. That’s what I’ve done.’ [...] His bandages hid a wound, a big bad one.

5. a large or erect penis.

1838		‘Devil To Pay’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 44: He shock at her his wand, / It was a precious whopper.
1893		‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 9: ‘Oh, what a whopper he is,’ as her plump hands grasped my already stiffening prick.
1909		G.R. Bacchus Pleasure Bound ‘Ashore’ 48: ‘My God,’ she said, ‘what a whopper!’.
1963		Gosling in New Society 18 Apr. 10: You fondle her, and she makes back and you’ve got a great whopper on.
1970		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 317: The first mate’s name was Topper. / By God! he had a whopper, / Twice round the deck, / once around his neck, / And up his ass the stopper.

6. in pl., exceptionally large breasts.

1967		J. Hibberd White with Wire Wheels (1973) 215: My mother had a pair of whoppers.
1978		V.G. O’Sullivan Boy, The Bridge, The River 76: Nobody’s going to leave those whoppers for long, Janey.
2005		at www.superhot.com 🌐 Wendy Whoppers and her ‘huge’ equipment star in this exciting video [...] Watch her big boobs bounce up and down as she shows off her ‘many’ talents!

7. a very stupid person.

1998

K. Sampson Awaydays 115: For all that Batesy’s some kind of whopper, he’s ours and he’s hard and he’s the only one who had a go.