able whackets

• abel-wackets, abelwhackets, ablewhackets, ablewackets

Possibly from able, as in able seaman, and whack.

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able whackets pl (plural only)

1. (nautical slang, now historical) Blows on the hand from a knotted or twisted handkerchief, especially given as a punishment to the loser of certain card games. [from 18th c.]
   • 1905, John Masefield, Sea Life in Nelson's Time, section IV:

     The chief amusement or game in use in the midshipmen's berth, was ‘able whackets’, a pastime in which cards, blasphemy, and hard knocks were agreeably mingled.

   • 2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin, published 2015, page 15:

     Instead of the usual sailors' games of cards and ablewhackets, there was the clicking of dice, with games of parcheesi unfolding on chequerboards of rope […].

• Grose, Francis (1788) A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue‎^[1], 2nd edition, page 1
• John S[tephen] Farmer, compiler (1890) “able whackets”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume I, [London: […] Thomas Poulter and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 6.

• abelwhackets