Word of the Day Archive
Saturday January 8, 2011
sockdolager \sok-DOL-uh-jer\
, noun:
1. A decisive reply, argument.
2. Something unusually large, heavy, etc.
3. A heavy, finishing blow.
WHACK! - bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum - and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit - and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager.
-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
"Your first day awake with us was some sockdolager," Andy said. "You handled them sharps slick as grease."
-- Darryl Brock, If I Never Get Back
Sockdolager is an odd American combination from the 1830s. Its probable components are sock, as in "striking a blow," and doxology, "a fervent hymn to god." Sockdolager is also possibly the last word Abraham Lincoln heard before he was assassinated.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for sockdolager
