How to Use thwack in a Sentence

thwack

1 of 2 verb
  • A book fell off the shelf and thwacked me on the head.
  • Washed away in a torrent, on Rocky goes, thwacking and plonking his way to Texas and then to South Dakota.
    Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Live fish — Momma Wong typically goes for the tilapia, which is thwacked, gutted and scaled in the store.
    Grace Wong, chicagotribune.com, 1 Mar. 2018
  • The group joshed around and one by one, stepped up to thwack golf balls towards a tiny floating island in the Connecticut River.
    Amanda Morris, Courant Community, 17 June 2017
  • The hours before a baseball game have a languor to them: kids gawking on the edges of the field, big-leaguers thwacking batting-practice home runs.
    Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 12 June 2023
  • Line up, charge aimlessly, and then thwack at one another.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 21 Mar. 2021
  • Or the one that conjures up the clip of him getting thwacked by Jalen Mills in the 2016 opener, causing a shoulder injury that cost him nearly the entire season.
    Conor Orr, SI.com, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Belgium had been thwacked by Italy and Turkey in the group stage of that 2000 tournament in a resounding message about the country’s prowess.
    Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 9 July 2018
  • The other night, a helicopter hovered over my old Craftsman, thwack-thwack-thwacking me into a new dawn.
    Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2019
  • Last year, relations allegedly reached a low point, with a manager thwacking an employee on the head with a high-heeled shoe.
    Emily Jane Fox, The Hive, 28 June 2017
  • If a jockey is thwacked off his mount, his riderless horse can still win on its own, like Garfunkel arriving without Simon.
    Dwight Garner, New York Times, 16 Apr. 2018
  • They have been thwacked with tariffs on steel, aluminium and components from China, and threatened with broader levies on cars and car parts in the name of national security.
    The Economist, 14 Nov. 2019
  • But Bourdain chose his targets carefully, often made amends, and rarely thwacked his rhetorical skillet upon the less powerful.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 12 June 2018
  • The poem was accompanied by an image of Meg White peeking out from behind a curtain of hair while thwacking a kit featuring the duo’s signature peppermint swirl color scheme.
    Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 16 Mar. 2023
  • Cleavers thwack rhythmically through chicken carcasses; blackened woks sizzle with hunks of ginger and garlic.
    Hilda Hoy, Slate Magazine, 8 May 2017
  • The challenge lies in the ferociously physical steps — an onslaught of thwacking arms, emphatic kicks, dizzying spins, swift somersaults, perilous balances and slippery contortions — and their relentless repetition.
    Siobhan Burke, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2017
  • A book fell off the shelf and thwacked me on the head.
  • Washed away in a torrent, on Rocky goes, thwacking and plonking his way to Texas and then to South Dakota.
    Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Live fish — Momma Wong typically goes for the tilapia, which is thwacked, gutted and scaled in the store.
    Grace Wong, chicagotribune.com, 1 Mar. 2018
  • The group joshed around and one by one, stepped up to thwack golf balls towards a tiny floating island in the Connecticut River.
    Amanda Morris, Courant Community, 17 June 2017
  • The hours before a baseball game have a languor to them: kids gawking on the edges of the field, big-leaguers thwacking batting-practice home runs.
    Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 12 June 2023
  • Line up, charge aimlessly, and then thwack at one another.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 21 Mar. 2021
  • Or the one that conjures up the clip of him getting thwacked by Jalen Mills in the 2016 opener, causing a shoulder injury that cost him nearly the entire season.
    Conor Orr, SI.com, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Belgium had been thwacked by Italy and Turkey in the group stage of that 2000 tournament in a resounding message about the country’s prowess.
    Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 9 July 2018
  • The other night, a helicopter hovered over my old Craftsman, thwack-thwack-thwacking me into a new dawn.
    Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2019
  • Last year, relations allegedly reached a low point, with a manager thwacking an employee on the head with a high-heeled shoe.
    Emily Jane Fox, The Hive, 28 June 2017
  • If a jockey is thwacked off his mount, his riderless horse can still win on its own, like Garfunkel arriving without Simon.
    Dwight Garner, New York Times, 16 Apr. 2018
  • They have been thwacked with tariffs on steel, aluminium and components from China, and threatened with broader levies on cars and car parts in the name of national security.
    The Economist, 14 Nov. 2019
  • But Bourdain chose his targets carefully, often made amends, and rarely thwacked his rhetorical skillet upon the less powerful.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 12 June 2018
  • The poem was accompanied by an image of Meg White peeking out from behind a curtain of hair while thwacking a kit featuring the duo’s signature peppermint swirl color scheme.
    Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 16 Mar. 2023
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thwack

2 of 2 noun
  • Wilkes shouted over the thwack of the boat against the water.
    Jeff Chu, Travel + Leisure, 30 Jan. 2022
  • The thwack and pop of the paddle hitting the ball is ubiquitous.
    Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 7 Oct. 2020
  • The thwack of heat from a paving of black pepper on the pork ribs balances their meaty excess.
    Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 8 Dec. 2020
  • The thwack of the ball against a wooden bat makes a lovely summer soundtrack.
    Katie Pesznecker, Anchorage Daily News, 4 June 2021
  • Fay winds up with the Squatch Stik and takes a home-run swing at a tall tree, sending a loud thwack echoing through the forest.
    Leah Sottile, SFChronicle.com, 8 June 2018
  • During a practice session, Samuels once blocked one of my shots with such strength that the ball bounced off the wall with an echoing thwack.
    Ulrich Boser, Slate Magazine, 7 Mar. 2017
  • The thwack sets off more chaos, before the two move their fight out of the theater and into the cotton-candy-pink-tiled bathroom.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Feb. 2022
  • With the stage set by Walsh and several thwacks of rain, Petty’s 18th Red Rocks show proved to be a memorable one.
    Dylan Owens, The Know, 30 May 2017
  • At times the heads jerk sideways, as if recoiling from a slap, the gesture accompanied by a thwack of hand on thigh.
    BostonGlobe.com, 21 Sep. 2019
  • Snow pirouettes and swings Longclaw into one wight, takes a thwack at a second, and uppercuts a third.
    Cam Wolf, GQ, 28 Aug. 2017
  • Ironically, China may have harbored a boomerang that will come back for a thwack.
    Robert Hackett, Fortune, 21 June 2021
  • The rhythm section built a clean latticework of grooves, with the drummer's fat thwacks slotting neatly next to the bassist's resonant thuds.
    Elias Leight, Billboard, 31 Aug. 2017
  • With the roof shut because of rain earlier in the day, each thwack of racket strings against ball by the two big hitters created echoes around the old arena.
    Howard Fendrich, courant.com, 15 July 2017
  • The camps echoed with the thwack of hammers nailing planks into place and with the grunts of men positioning sandbags on their roofs to keep them from blowing away.
    Shashank Bengali, latimes.com, 30 May 2018
  • A swing is a delicate thing for a hitter, and batting practice carries its own unique rhythm — see the pitch, swing, thwack (or in the case of an aluminum bat, ping).
    Billy Witz, New York Times, 8 July 2017
  • It may have been derived from thwack and merged with wacky at some point to form the slang version of whack, which indicates something crazy or messed up, like that game was whack, man.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 26 Jan. 2022
  • The lone call of the magic horn that sounds at its outset trails off into a misty landscape, a trickling brook, a waking dawn and the blunt-force thwack of a cold-water tutti.
    Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2022
  • The head-on-pine thwack was audible above the Billy Ray, and several adult chaperones screamed.
    Jonathan Rowe, SPIN, 5 June 2023
  • Much of this silence, though, was routinely broken by the thwack of a driver making contact with a golf ball, sometimes heard from as far as two holes away.
    Tom Fox, Dallas News, 18 June 2020
  • The jangling whine of the engine turns into a steady jackhammer thwack as the drill pounds steel casings down two meters, then retrieves them, now full of soil samples.
    Genesee Keevil, Popular Mechanics, 17 May 2018
  • She was interrupted by what sounded like a rifle shot — thwack!
    Bob Shaw, Twin Cities, 4 July 2019
  • All the pomp and revelry of the Giants’ home opener was interrupted by one sobering pitch to Buster Posey, and the disturbing thwack of a 93 mph fastball off the helmet.
    Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News, 10 Apr. 2017
  • The thwack of fists hitting hand pads echoed through the studio as pairs of women circled each other, striking blows and blocking them, with a singular focus.
    New York Times, 28 Nov. 2021
  • But Mbedu ensures that every thwack, knock and stabbing packs an emotional wallop.
    The New York Times Magazine, New York Times, 6 Dec. 2022
  • Whistles blaring, grown men shouting, the thwack of a quarterback’s pass hitting a receiver’s hands.
    John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Feb. 2021
  • In his final two rounds facing the slider machine, Chourio rocketed lasers to all fields, the thwack of the bat reverberating throughout the back fields.
    Journal Sentinel, 7 Mar. 2023
  • There’s a frisky all-American quality to the jazzy cross-rhythms that propel the central section, punctuated by thwacks of bundled sticks against a bass drum.
    John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 2 Feb. 2018
  • The old mechanical thwack of a high-end DSLR is a joy that mirrorless cameras can only ever hope to imitate.
    Vlad Savov, The Verge, 27 Sep. 2018
  • As expected, the songs were imbued with percussive vivacity, brought to life by sounds of childhood whimsy such as the toy-like whirring of a ratchet or the staccato thwack of a wood block.
    Katie Reul, Variety, 8 Nov. 2022
  • Moore and the producer Mike Viola show attention to small, intriguing details, such as the drumbeat that ends each measure in a multi-thwack cul-de-sac.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 18 Sep. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thwack.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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