thumping

• IPA^(key): /ˈθʌmpɪŋ/

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thumping (comparative more thumping, superlative most thumping)

1. (informal) Exceptional in some degree.

thumping (comparative more thumping, superlative most thumping)

1. (informal) Exceptionally. Very.

   A thumping good wizard you'll be, I'm sure.

thumping (countable and uncountable, plural thumpings)

1. A dull, heavy sound.
   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 28:

     They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade[.]

   • 1941, Gladys Mitchell, When Last I Died:

     There was nothing to be seen, but he could hear loud thumpings and bumpings which seemed to come from the back of the house.

2. A beating.

   He received a thumping from the school bully.

   • 1824, William Craig Brownlee, A careful and free inquiry into the true nature and tendency of the religious principles of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers:

     And in our times, in Philadelphia, there have been specimens of violent shruggings of the shoulders, and brachial twitches, and prodigious wry faces, and thumpings on the pews.

3. (sports) A heavy defeat.
   • 2011 January 11, Jonathan Stevenson, “West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC‎:

     Grant's future has been the subject of rumour after rumour for much of the season and last week's horrific 5-0 thumping at Newcastle was the catalyst for another round of fevered speculation.

• (heavy defeat): thrashing

thumping

1. present participle and gerund of thump