The story
- Malay · semantic loan fromhentam“to strike; to do something carelessly”
- English todayanyhow whack
From anyhow (“carelessly”) + whack (“to attempt something blindly”, Singapore English), the latter a semantic loan from Malay hentam (“to strike; to do something carelessly”).
Words from the same roots
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.