whopping
whopping Lexical Profile
whopping Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Extremely large, costly, or impressive in size, amount, or degree (informal, typically used before a noun or numerical figure).
"The charity auction raised a whopping two million dollars for the local children's hospital."
• adverb
To an extremely large degree; immensely or exceedingly (informal, used before adjectives such as 'great' or 'big').
"They caught a whopping big catfish near the bottom of the river."
Word Nuance & Usage
As an adjective, 'whopping' is used exclusively in the attributive position before a noun (often preceding a specific number, percentage, or measurement, as in 'a whopping 50 percent') and is never used predicatively after a linking verb.
• Rhymes for whopping
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived in the late 18th century as the present participle of the verb 'whop' (a variant of Middle English 'wap', meaning to strike heavily or beat), following a common colloquial pattern in which verbs of striking evolve into intensifiers denoting impressive size.