thwack
/θwæk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.06 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To hit (someone or something) hard, especially with a flat implement or a stick; to thrash, to whack.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "This carter thwacketh his horse upon the croup, / And they began to drawen and to stoop."
- "Flaies lustily thwack, / least plough séede lack."
- "Run, run, come you hither / Novv, take all my Cuſhions dovvn and thvvack them ſoundly, / After my Feaſt of Millers: for their Buttocks / Have left a peck of flovver in them, beat them carefully […]"
- "VVith that Nic bounc'd up vvith a Spring equal to that of one of your nimbleſt Tumblers or Rope dancers, falls foul upon John Bull to ſnatch the Cudgel he had in his Hand, that he might Thvvack Levvis vvith it."
- "I had finished my toilet, and was loitering with Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwacking sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dinner."
- "Now, great logician! nothings enemy! / Who thwacketh nothing, and its numerous fry / Of little nothings, and the nothings grown; / The fog-lost nothings; and the nothings known."
Etymology
The verb is probably: * partly onomatopoeic, from the sound of something being beaten (compare whack); and * partly derived from Late Middle English twakken, twake (“to hit (someone) with something; to pat; to stroke”), probably from Middle English thakken, thakke (“to dab; to pat; to stroke”) [and other forms] (whence thack (obsolete except Britain, dialectal)), from Old English þaccian (“to beat; to pat; to touch softly, stroke; to strike gently, clap, tap”), from Proto-West Germanic *þakkōn, from Proto-Germanic *þakwōną (“to pat; to tap; to touch”), from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- (“to grasp with the hand; to touch”). Doublet of tangent. The noun and interjection are derived from the verb. Cognates * Latin tangō (“touch”) * Old Dutch þakolōn (“to stroke”) * Old Norse þykkr (“a blow, thump, thwack”) (Icelandic þjaka, þjökka (“to beat, thump, thwack”); Norwegian tjåka (“to strike, beat”))
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /θwæk/
- British English: /θwæk/
Usage
Inflected Forms
thwacks (present, singular)
thwacking (participle, present)
thwacked (participle, past)
thwacked (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
thwacked (first person, past)
thwackest (archaic, present)
thwacked (past, second person)
thwackedst (archaic, past)
thwacketh (archaic, present)
thwacked (past, singular)