English

Alternative forms

• sockdologer
• sogdolloger

Noun

sockdolager ‎(plural sockdolagers)

1. (US, slang, obsolete) a hard hit, a knockout or finishing blow
   • 1831, James Kirke Paulding, Lion of the West:

     He’ll come off as badly as a feller I once hit a sledge hammer lick over the head—a real sogdolloger.

   • 1838, James Fenimore Cooper, Home as Found:

     There is but one ‘sogdollager’ in the universe, and that is in Lake Oswego.

   • 1859, Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms

     "I gave the fellow a socdolager over his head with the barrel of my gun,"

   • 1884, Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 20.

     The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then rip comes another flash and another sockdologer.

2. (US, slang, obsolete) something exceptional, a whopper
   • 1953, Ray Bradbury, The Murderer:

     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.)

3. (US, fishing) A combination of two hooks which close upon each other, by means of a spring, as soon as the fish bites.

Derived terms

• sockdologizing

See also

• Appendix:Fanciful 19th century American coinages

References

1. 1 2 America in So Many Words: Words That Have Shaped America, by David K. Barnhart, Allan A. Metcalf, “1827 sockdolager”, p. 127
2. 1 2 “Sockdolager”, World Wide Words, Michael Quinion, created 17 Oct. 1998, last updated 20 Apr. 2006.
3. 1 2 14 American English Abroad, Richard W. Bailey, 14.1 Introduction, pp. 456–458, in The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume 6, 1992
4. ↑ Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), by John Russell Bartlett