1. an event with a powerful and unpleasant effect; a blow: informal"the third whammy was the degradation of the financial system"
▪ an evil or unlucky influence:informal"I've come to put the whammy on them"
Word Origin1940s: from the noun wham + -y1; associated from the 1950s with the cartoon strip Li'l Abner, in which the hillbilly Evil-Eye Fleegle could ‘shoot a whammy’ (to put a curse on somebody) by pointing a finger with one eye open, and a ‘double whammy’ with both eyes open.
