Whaam

Part of speech: interjection, noun

Definitions

1. An exclamation imitating the sudden loud crash of a heavy blow or collision
2. A sound word meant to represent the abrupt, booming noise of an impact or explosion
3. Used to mimic the noise of a forceful strike, crash, or sudden burst of noise

Etymology: "Whaam" is an imitative word, formed to copy the sound of a heavy blow, crash or explosion. Its earliest recorded uses in English are in the 19th century, appearing in print as a sound effect in comic and popular writing, and it belongs to a large family of onomatopoeic words like "bang," "wham," and "slam" that built their sounds from the same letter patterns. It has no classical or Old English ancestor to trace. The spelling with "aa" is the spelling of the sound as it was written out in comic strips and cartoons, where writers stretched vowels to show a loud, drawn-out impact. The noun use came later, when the sound itself was turned into a thing: a loud crash, or an event that makes one. That noun sense is much more recent than the interjection and largely belongs to informal and comic English.

Synonyms: bang, bam, crash, thud, boom