colloq. [f. WHACK v. + -ER1.]
1. a. A heavy blow. dial.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, 477. Whacker, a blow, a thump.
b. A driver of animals, a drover. U.S.
1880. E. Ingersoll, in Harper’s Mag., LX. 679/1. The whacker’s long whip cracking like pistol-shots as he lashes his unwieldy beasts [sc. oxen] into position.
1889. H. O’Reilly, 50 Yrs. on Trail, xvi. 172. To search round for bull-whackers to drive them over.
2. Anything abnormally large of its kind; esp. a ‘thumping’ lie; a ‘whopper.’
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Whacker, a lie.
1828. Sporting Mag. (N.S.) XXII. 416. Though the fences are whackers, the brooks they are small.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iv. Oh, there’s a whacker!… we haven’t been within a hundred yards of his barn.
1872. J. R. Green, Lett. to E. A. Freeman, 18 Sept., in Lett., III. (1901), 324. The Dome which ought to be a whacker is a poor wee thing.
