sockdolager
nounUS [ˌsɑkˈdɑːɫ.ə.d͡ʒɚ]
Etymology Unknown, 1827 US, presumably fanciful variant of sock (“to hit”); compare contemporary fanciful American coinages. Various speculative etymologies have been suggested, such as corruption of doxology, due to this occurring at the end of church worship, hence “finality”.
- He’ll come off as badly as a feller I once hit a sledge hammer lick over the head—a real sogdolloger.1831, James Kirke Paulding, Lion of the West:
- There is but one ‘sogdollager’ in the universe, and that is in Lake Oswego.1838, James Fenimore Cooper, Home as Found:
3 more examples
- "I gave the fellow a socdolager over his head with the barrel of my gun,"1859, Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms:
- The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then rip comes another flash and another sockdologer.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 20, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:
- “If punching parrots on the beak wasn't too painful for pleasure, I'd land you a sockdolager on the muzzle that ud lay you out till Christmas.”1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 68:
- Hey, Al, thought I'd call you from the locker room out here at Green Hills. Just made a sockdolager hole in one! A hole in one, Al! (etc.)1953, Ray Bradbury, The Murderer::
- Derived terms
- sockdologizing