Definition of "whacking"

[…] all our grannies tell us how / He kill’d a whacking great dun cow;

1762, Thomas Bridges, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, London: S. Hooper, 1772, Book 7 of Homer’s Iliad, p. 289

[…] these two whacking Irish boys, that I was telling you of just now, are posted at the hall door to seize the villain, and take him to pay his respects to the next sitting magistrate […]

1819, Olivia Clarke, The Irishwoman. A Comedy in Five Acts, London: H. Colburn, Act V, Scene 2, p. 80

[…] beside them clung a trumpeter, a whacking big man, an’ between the heavy seas he would lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he blew the men gave a cheer.

1895, Arthur Quiller-Couch, “The Roll-Call of the Reef”, in Wandering Heath: Stories, Studies, and Sketches‎, London: Cassell & Co., published 1896, page 13

He was what they call a Hard-shell Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper lip and a whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he didn't expect to see many of us hereafter […]

1903, F. Marion Crawford, Man Overboard!‎, New York: Macmillan, pages 81–82

There was no secret in Genoa about the destination of the little tramp with the peculiar equipment of lifeboats and davits—two whacking great motor boats each as big as a Navy pinnace, each with a couple of hundred horse-power in her.

1926, Neville Shute, chapter 5, in Marazan‎, London: Cassell & Co.

If any of you want a whacking lot of experience, lots of thrills to the minute and can pay your own freight, sign up for that trip to the land of the Northern Lights.

1932, Delta Sigma Delta-Desmos, volume 38, page 151

He seizes on an opportunity to buy a house at a repo-auction, planning to sell it on for a whacking profit.

2004 February 27, Peter Bradshaw, “House of Sand and Fog”, in The Guardian