Dictionary

sockdolager en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• [ˌsɑkˈdɑːɫ.ə.d͡ʒɚ] (General-American)

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”.

Meanings

1. (US, dated, slang) A hard hit, a knockout or finishing blow, or conclusive argument.
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • "I gave the fellow a socdolager over his head with the barrel of my gun," 1859, Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms:
   • “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:
2. (US, dated, slang) Something large or otherwise exceptional; a whopper.
   • 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::
3. (US) A combination of two hooks which close upon each other, by means of a spring, as soon as the fish bites.

Forms

Deriveds

sockdologizing

wikipedia: Michael Quinion · wikipedia: John Russell Bartlett