wailing

Related to wailing: Wailing Wall

whaling

dated slang An intensifier, especially for something very good or enjoyable. An allusion to the great size of a whale. We had a whaling good time at that party. The boy has a whaling big appetite, but he's still as skinny as a string bean!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

wailing

and whaling
mod. excellent. (Teens.) What a whaling guitar!
See also: wail
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • for good measure
  • do (one) a/the world of good
  • do no good
  • be as good as new
  • as good as it gets
  • (one) (has) never had it so good
  • (as) good as new
  • as good as new
  • come up to expectations
  • expecations
References in classic literature
The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive.
As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," reasserted itself.
She marched the shrinking ghostseer down to the spring and ordered her to proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of wailing ladies and headless specters beyond.
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away."
To this wailing lament succeeded moans from within the house; the sound of a woman's voice came through the casements.
Such was the boisterous revelry of the village; but sounds of another kind were heard on the surrounding hills; piteous wailings of the women, who had retired thither to mourn in darkness and solitude for those who had fallen in battle.
Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters met with the most rapturous expressions of joy; while wailings and lamentations were heard from the relatives of the killed and wounded.
At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch --then headed by Flask --was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly --like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents --that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing.
Book publisher Piatkus, an imprint of UK publishing company Little, Brown Book Group, plans to release The Wailing Woman by Maria Lewis at the end of this year, The Bookseller revealed on Monday.
HORRIFIED on-lookers alerted police when they saw "a controlling bully" drag a wailing woman by her hair and attack her.
In a press statement by the Media and Publicity Secretary of the group, Emma Powerful, confirmed that its leader was in Jerusalem at the wailing wall where he joined Islamic faithful to offer prayers.
By: Egypt Today staff CAIRO - 4 September 2017: 'Wailing of the Body' dance performance will take place on September 10 at the Embassy of Switzerland in Cairo.
The Sunday People can reveal that the Paralympian, 29, who shot dead his girlfriend on Valentine's Day 2013, was said to have been howling and wailing.
Israeli newspaper Haaretzhas revealed Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes in the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem in order to expand al-Buraq (wailing) Wall.
With no street visibility and a sales cycle that depends on sunny weather in notoriously gloomy Bellingham, dollars do not come easy for The Wailing Goat Espresso.