Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whaling n.

a beating.

1847		N.-Y. Trib. Aug. n.p.: But it is possible that we may, at some future time, go to war with England--her writers and speakers having spoken disparagingly of us, while her actors, half-pay officers and other travelling gentry carry their heads rather high in passing through our country—for which ‘arrogant’ demeanor we are bound to give her a whaling! [B].
1851		‘The Blacksmith of the Mountain Pass’ in Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 83: Well, you have got a whaling to submit to, then; I’ll larrup you like blazes!
1878		New Ulm Wkly Rev. 19 June 6/3: Don’t you let daddy hear such talk as that; he’ll tune ye, ef he does, and no mistake. He did give Dan and me one whalin’, but he’d oughten hev, that’s a fact.
1881		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Oct. 6/1: ‘[O]nce he went for the young chap and gave him a terrible whaling’.
1898		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in Peace and War 119: Between th’ whalin’s we got at school [...] an’ th’ thumpin’s we got at home, we was kept sore.
1907		J.W. Carr ‘Word-List from Hampstead, N.H.’ in DN III iii 204: whaling, n. Flogging, whipping. ‘He got an awful whaling.’.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 188: I had guv yuh an all-round good whalin’ coz yuh had a setdown [...] without comin’ back with no handout fer me.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 811: She’d gotten a whaling.
1935		D. Burley Chicago Defender 1 Sept. 5: [I wanted] to get out of the car [and] give the matter-of-fact talking white boy a throough whaling, even though it meant jail.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 104: The old man gave me a sound whaling for stealing.
1982		(ref. to 1920s) in Lowenstein & Hills Under Hook 15: Sister Anthony gave me one bloody big whaling with a strap.