thwack
Americanverb (used with object)
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thwacks,
present (3rd person singular)
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thwacked,
past participle, past
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thwacking
present participle
noun
verb
noun
interjection
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
thwacksimple
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thwackssimple
-
have thwackedperfect
-
has thwackedperfect
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am thwackingprogressive
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are thwackingprogressive
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is thwackingprogressive
-
have been thwackingperfect progressive
-
has been thwackingperfect progressive
Past
-
thwackedsimple
-
had thwackedperfect
-
was thwackingprogressive
-
were thwackingprogressive
-
had been thwackingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of thwack
First recorded in 1520–30; imitative
Vocabulary lists containing thwack
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The following “RV Envy” adds the thwack of a full drum kit to the mix, and the staticky howl of the hurdy-gurdy is as hectic as a smashed window triggering a building’s alarm system.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
Dahlia Lithwick: I think what Judge Burroughs did was quite remarkable—she took a thwack at Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in the opinion itself.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2025
Combine sand and gunpowder and thwack, you’ve made a brick of TNT.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2025
Only then can he thwack the ball toward his opponent.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2024
It snapped back against her throat with a thwack!
From "A Wish in the Dark" by Christina Soontornvat
Manly Mando thwacks and snicks his way through all opponents while scarcely breaking a sweat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
So when he and Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia heard the thwacks coming from down the hall, they assumed it was a coach’s kid.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2022
“We’d also record it above ground to get the actual sound of the impact,” Mangini said, demonstrating his method for me with a few sharp thwacks into the Zuma Beach sand.
From New York Times ● Mar. 16, 2022
Two thwacks of the cleaver and he’s cut the duck in half.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 24, 2021
It thwacks into my open glove, falls to the ground, and three of their runners score.
From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins
“The shucked abalone is trimmed, butterflied, and thwacked lightly with a mallet.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
When Neil Wagner tried to bounce him, Brook cleared the front leg and thwacked the ball away, baseball-style.
From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2023
Seemingly everything he threw, the Rockies touched or tipped or simply thwacked.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2022
Upon creating it, he thwacked an inch-perfect cross toward the mouth of the goal, where Pulisic flew in to head it past Ochoa to give the United States a 1-0 lead.
From New York Times ● Nov. 13, 2021
He thwacked it against a bed to test its strength.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
Once, the frenetic thwacking of flippers was the peak of manic childhood glee.
From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2023
By the afternoon, the usual sounds of baseball echoed through the facility, balls thwacking into mitts in the bullpens and on the back fields.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 15, 2023
In the U.S. alone, somewhere between several hundred million and one billion birds die every year after thwacking into windows, many of them beckoned by interior lights.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 1, 2022
Mosquitoes swarmed while mouse-sized dragonflies bombarded the hunters with thwacking, thumping thuds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2022
Little kids play double Dutch in the empty lot, their braided ropes thwacking against the cold asphalt.
From "Like Vanessa" by Tami Charles
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
