thwacking

Verb

thwack (third-person singular simple present thwacks, present participle thwacking, simple past and past participle thwacked)

1. (transitive) To hit (someone or something) hard, especially with a flat implement or a stick; to thrash, to whack.
   • This carter thwacketh his horse upon the croup, / And they began to drawen and to stoop.[1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Friar’s Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales (in Middle English), [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; Charles Cowden Clarke, editor, The Canterbury...

   Synonyms:

   thack, bethwack, bang, baste, batter, beat, belabor, blow, boom-boom, buffet

2. (also, figuratively, transitive) To drive or force (someone or something) by, or as if by, beating or hitting; to knock.
   • But let him ſvveare ſo, and he ſhall not ſtay, / VVee'l thvvack him hence vvith Diſtaffes.c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
3. (transitive) To pack (people or things) closely together; to cram.
   • [W]hen hee comes to deſcribe the office of his imaginarie doctor [he] thvvacks fourteene Scriptures into the margent, vvhereof not any one hath any iuſt colour of inference to his purpoſe: […]1610, Jos[eph] Hall, “Section V. The Antiquity and Examples of Separation.”, in A Common Apologie of the Church of England: Against the Uniust Challenges of the Ouer-iust Sect, Commonly Called...
4. (figuratively, transitive) To decisively defeat (someone) in a contest; to beat, to thrash.
   • 3 [Servingman] VVhy here's he that vvas vvont to thvvacke our Generall, Caius Martius. / 1 VVhy do you ſay, thvvacke our Generall? / 3 I do not ſay thvvacke our Generall, but he vvas alvvayes good enough for him.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
5. (obsolete, transitive) To crowd or pack (a place or thing) with people, objects, etc.
   • And my lad Aſcanius with a Troian mantel adorning, / Weau'd woorks thwackt with honor, to her gifts this parlye ſhe lincketh.1582, Virgil, “The Third Booke of Virgil His Aeneis”, in Richard Stanyhurst, transl., The First Foure Bookes of Virgils Æneis, […], London: […] Henrie Bynneman […], published 1583, →OCLC; republished...
6. (intransitive) To fall down hard with a thump.
   • And see, that urchin, ho-ieroe! / His truant legs they sink from under, / And to the quaking sheet below [i.e., ice on which he has been skating], / Down thwacks he, with a thud like thunder!1831 February, “Delta” [pseudonym; David Macbeth Moir], “The Winter Wild”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXIX, number CLXXVII, part II, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas]...

See all 11 meanings of thwack