English
thwack
Thwack may come from Middle English twakken.
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English thwack
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1582, Virgil, The Third Booke of Virgil His Aeneis: “And my lad Aſcanius with a Troian mantel adorning,…”.
Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500twakkenWiktionary, English thwackuncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1582thwackWiktionary, English thwack. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1582, Virgil, The Third Booke of Virgil His Aeneis: “And my lad Aſcanius with a Troian mantel adorning,…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- ‘to touch’
contact, taste, integrity, integrate, contingent, tangible, attain, tame, taxis, tangent, contiguous, taxonomy, contagion, talon, tactile, contaminate, tama, tact, ataxia, talus, 30 more
Today it means
verb To hit (someone or something) hard, especially with a flat implement or a stick; to thrash, to whack.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “thwack”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Middle English twakken / thwack