A bad, noisy singer. Victorian theatre and entertainment slang, recorded in 1909 in the plural: whooperups.
What it really means
A whooperup is a bad singer — but the word is sharper than that summary.
J. Redding Ware recorded it in 1909, in the plural, under a label that tells you who was using it: Whooperups (Theatrical and Entertainment generally). Inferior, noisy singers.
So this was not the audience's word. It was the profession's. It is what music-hall and theatre people called the performers they did not rate — and the insult is built into the sound. To whoop is to shout. A whooperup is someone who has mistaken volume for voice.
That is a very specific failing, and a very specific kind of contempt: the professional's contempt for the loud amateur who gets the booking anyway. It is the same judgement people still pass on a singer who belts every line, delivered in one compact word.
Ware wrote it as whooperups, a type rather than a person. Singular, it becomes an insult you can aim — which is presumably why it is the form these lists have kept.
Where it comes from
The word is the complaint: loud first, singing second.
Myths & misconceptions
A whooperup is anyone who sings badly.
Ware's entry is more specific and more professional: it is theatre and music-hall slang for inferior, noisy singers — performers, judged by other performers.
How it connects
- Mutton Shunteranother trade's slang from the same book — what the police called each other.
Questions people ask
- Is whooperup a real word?
- Yes. Ware's Passing English of the Victorian Era (1909) lists 'Whooperups' as theatrical and entertainment slang for 'inferior, noisy singers'.