Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to buy a round of drink.

1876

St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: The belief of the party is that he has ‘snakes in his boots’ and by way of getting rid of them he is told to ‘set ’em up’ or ‘whoop ’er up again’.

2. (orig. US, also whoop her up) to have a noisy, ostentatious good time; thus whooper-up n., one who acts in this way.

1879		Dly Globe (St Paul, MN) 29 Oct. 1/4: The first cocktail tasted well and he repeated it [...] he whooped it up.
1881		‘Bill Nye’ Bill Nye and Boomerang 125: The band struck up the oratorio of ‘Whoop ’em up, ’Liza Jane.’.
1885		C.A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy (1950) 92: That night I quit and went to town to ‘whoop ’em up Liza Jane.’.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 July 7/1: If a man has been up all night whooping things, a ‘white plush’ is a better bracer than a cocktail.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 Feb. 5/1: [pic. caption] Just like ‘the boys’ Mary Wise and Sallie Boyer, of Cincinnati, get pay-day jags on and whoop it up lively.
1902		P.L. Dunbar Jest Of Fate (1903) 97: I’m one o’ them kin’ o’ men ’at believe in whooping things up [...] let’s have some beer, an’ we’ll have some music purty soon.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 July 12/4: Anyhow, while whooping things up at the top of his voice, and exceeding the speed limit and every other known substance, he managed to overturn the vehicle, with the result that the man and the woman were killed [...] Chief Justice Stout expressed the hope that great benefit would accrue to road hogs all round. What he especially urged the young whooper-up to remember was that when a man buys a car he doesn’t also buy the road, the adjacent population and the cemetery.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 5 Sept. [synd. col.] Anyway, Hamish — [...] is whooping things up at the Rialto.
1927		K. Nicholson Barker I i: You think all there is to it is rarin’ round havin’ a good time and whoopin’ it up.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 69: A very drunk tall elderly man ... who kept yelling, ‘Whoop her up, boys.’.
1935		C. Drew ‘Thirsty’s Christmas Box’ in Bulletin 25 Dec. 41/1: The sky was the limit to-night, and the boys were whooping her up.
1940		S. Lister Mistral Hotel (1951) 73: That Mrs Whitely and the Rooshian dishwasher was whooping it up a bit last night.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 35: The fat burpers were getting drunker and whooping up louder.
1958		Peter Cape ‘Down the Hall on a Saturday Night’ 🎵 We’re as slick as the Orange in Auckland / For whooping things up and making them hum.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 60: So now I was all set to whoop it up.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 61: The prosperous thief [...] has been whooping it up for years.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 244: The bar was packed with dubious-looking cockney exiles [...] all whooping it up.
1999		Guardian Guide 11–17 Sept. 65: Seven winners getting the chance to whoop it up in Honolulu.
2000		Indep. Rev. 19 May 10: London drug dealers and naked policemen whooping it up at a Women’s Institute tea party? Come on.

3. (also whoop on, whoop up) to stir things up, to create excitement, to praise something and thus arouse support for it.

1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 51: The way the Georgia ‘crackers’ can whoop up votes is something remarkable.
1888		Huddersfield Chron. 5 Nov. 4/2: Many of the [New York] city laws are only made to satisfy an outburst of semi-popular feeling ‘whooped up’ by the press.
1890		Wash. Standard (Olympia, WA) 5 Sept. 3/2: It isn’t the g.o.p. whooping up their prospects of victory in the [...] campaign.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Apr. 10/2: [T]he clergy of all sects are enthusiastically whooping-on the populace to war.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Dec. 4/6: The Daily Ooze is whooping for a Ratepayers’ Defence Association.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 284: You’d be on the band-wagon whooping it up for Gopher Prairie and a good decent family life.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 210: Little ole George takes the gavel and whoops ’em up and introduces the speakers.
1925		S. Anderson Dark Laughter 178: You who are just tired of whooping it up for war.
1937		‘George Orwell’ Road to Wigan Pier in Complete Works V (1986) 75: The stuff that gets whooped up by the blurb-reviewers.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 477: Then a pistol shot is fired, the chorines whoop it up.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Culture 1 Aug. 12: He whoops up his own financial success.

4. (US) to vomit.

1912

R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 593: whoop her up, v. To vomit. ‘He helped to eat a green water-melon, and the first thing he knew he was whooping her up in grand style.’.

5. (US) to raise, to increase.

1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 33: I’m thankin’ you, marshal; that’ll whoop up my savin’s.
1948		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 371: Go whoop it up, stick it up, Reuben, cried she, / You’ll die with the clap if you ramble with me. / I winked an’ I blinked at her old magazine, / An’ crammed it right into her shaggin’-machine.

6. to shout, to cheer, to catcall.

2010

(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 89: They whooped it up when the blonde blew them a kiss between her legs.