verb (common).—To beat, flog, thrash. Also as subs. = a severe blow; WALLOPING = a good trouncing. Also WALLOPER.
1838. J. C. NEAL, Charcoal Sketches. All I know was WALLOPPING into me; I took larnin’ through the skin. Ibid. (1850), Orson Dabbs. There’s nothing like WALLOPPING for taking the conceit out of fellows who think they know more than their betters.
1843–4. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Attaché, xviii. I grabs right hold of the cow’s tail, and yelled and screamed like mad, and WALLOPED away at her like anything.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 468. He kept me without grub and WALLOPED me.
1861. Times, ‘On American Affairs.’
| Let us WALLOP great Doodle now when he is down, | |
| If we WALLOPS him well we will do him up brown. |
1878. NOAH BROOKS, The Apparition of Jo Murch, in Scribner’s Magazine, Nov., 79. Trying to get at a good place to WALLOP you with his ferule.
2. (provincial).—Generic for great effort or agitation: e.g., (a) to boil and bubble: see POTWALLOPER; (b) move or gallop quickly; (c) to tumble about. Also as subs., with the usual derivatives.
c. 1360. William of Palerne [E.E.T.S], 1770.
| Or he wiste, he was war · of þe white beres, | |
| þei went a-wai a WALLOP · as þei wod semed. |
c. 1400. Generydes [E.E.T.S.], 3325. And he anon to hym com WALOPING.
c. 1440. Merlin [E.E.T.S.], ii. 233. Than the kynge rode formest hym-self a grete WALOP, for sore hym longed to wite how the kynge Tradilyuaunt hym contened.
c. 1440. Morte Arthure [E.E.T.S.], 2146.
| Swerdez swangene in two, sweltand knyghtez | |
| Lyes wyde opyne welterande one WALOPANDE stedez. |
1793. BARLOW, Hasty Pudding, i.
| The yellow flour, bestrewed and stirred with haste, | |
| Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste, | |
| Then puffs and WALLOPS. |
1816. SCOTT, The Antiquary, xxx. She WALLOPPED away with all the grace of triumph.
