Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To strike so as to produce a loud, reverberant noise.
  • intransitive verb To produce a loud, reverberant noise.
  • noun A loud, reverberant noise.
  • noun A thong or whip of hide or leather.
  • noun A lashing blow, as of a whip.
  • noun The sound of such a blow.
  • noun Vulgar Slang The penis.
  • transitive verb To beat or whip with a thong.
  • transitive verb To beat with a sharp blow or blows.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A blow or thwack; a whack; a beating or banging; a bang
  • noun A cut; a piece; a slice; a chunk.
  • noun Formerly, in Maine and some other parts of New England, a house-cleaning party; a gathering of neighbors to aid one of their number in cleaning house.
  • noun A thong, especially a leathern thong.
  • noun A tough leather, such as is used for thongs, belt-lacing, etc. It is usually made of calf's hide, but sometimes of eelskin or the hide of a dog, woodchuck, racoon, etc.
  • To beat or bang; thwack; whack; flog; also, to throw with violence.
  • To cut in large slices or strips; slice.
  • To make or give out a banging noise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Scot. & Dial. Eng. To beat; thrash; bang; also, to throw, hurl, or fling about, violently.
  • transitive verb Scot. To slice, esp. in large pieces; to chop.
  • noun Prov. Eng. & Colloq. U. S. A leather thong.
  • noun Dial. or Colloq. A blow; whack.
  • noun Scot. & Dial. Eng. A large piece or slice; chunk.
  • noun Local, U. S. Formerly, a house-cleaning party.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To make a noise such as something moving quickly through the air.
  • verb informal, transitive To throw with a rapid slamming motion.
  • verb US, slang To whack or beat.
  • noun slang A penis.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb attack forcefully
  • verb propel or hit with force
  • verb beat with force
  • noun the act of hitting vigorously

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dialectal variant of Middle English thong, thwang, thong; see thong.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Imitative.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Debuccalized (/θw/ > /hw/) from Scots thwang, cognate to thong.

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Examples

  • Even those evil days of New England households, the annual house-cleaning, were robbed of some of their dismal terrors by what was known as a "whang," a gathering of a few friendly women neighbors to assist one another in that dire time, and thus speed and shorten the hours of misery.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • All of a sudden, on a murky night, a light would hop up, right under our bows, almost, and an agonized voice, with the backwoods 'whang' to it, would wail out --

    Life on the Mississippi 1870

  • In the old days, when Clete and I walked a beat on Canal and in the Quarter, a cop in trouble or chasing a perp would whang his baton on the pavement or a curb as a distress signal to other cops.

    The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

  • In the old days, when Clete and I walked a beat on Canal and in the Quarter, a cop in trouble or chasing a perp would whang his baton on the pavement or a curb as a distress signal to other cops.

    The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

  • In the old days, when Clete and I walked a beat on Canal and in the Quarter, a cop in trouble or chasing a perp would whang his baton on the pavement or a curb as a distress signal to other cops.

    The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

  • I heard a shell whang dead center into his helmet and ricochet inside.

    The Convict and Other Stories James Lee Burke 2010

  • In the old days, when Clete and I walked a beat on Canal and in the Quarter, a cop in trouble or chasing a perp would whang his baton on the pavement or a curb as a distress signal to other cops.

    The Glass Rainbow James Lee Burke 2010

  • OTAY so i sweeps the oooshy grey goop into a pan wipe the dirt of wiff my sleeve plop the mess inta the cavernous gaping skull crater whang the parts ob skull into place

    Dats one small step fur me and… - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2009

  • A good source to buy some organic astralagus/whang-ki: Mountain Rose Herbs.

    Archive 2008-11-01 GreenFertility 2008

  • A good source to buy some organic astralagus/whang-ki: Mountain Rose Herbs.

    Astragalus Root Can Prevent Telomere Shortening GreenFertility 2008

Comments

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  • House-cleaning party.

    February 9, 2011

  • Your faux pas I'll try to explain:

    When somebody says up in Maine,

    "We're inviting a gang

    To the house for a whang,"

    Don't go with a whip and a chain.

    December 6, 2014