sockdolager

also n. Slang

1. A conclusive blow or remark.
2. Something outstanding.

[Origin unknown.]

(sok-DOL-uh-juhr)

noun
1. A decisive blow or remark.
2. Something exceptional or outstanding.

Etymology
Of unknown origin, apparently from sock

This sockdolager of a word has an unusual claim to fame in the US history. It turned out to be the cue on which John Wilkes Booth fired his shot at President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was watching the play "Our American Cousin" in Ford's Theater on that fateful night. His killer, Booth, an actor himself and aware of the dialog, knew the line that brought the loudest burst of laughter from the audience was:
"Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap."
Booth fired his gun at that precise moment to muffle the loud noise of his shot with the guffaws from the audience.

Usage
"This year's storm was a sockdolager. The white stuff pounded the East Coast." — Be Prepared; Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia); Jan 17, 1996.

---

Origin: 1827

Entering the vocabulary by at least 1827, sockdolager was already well enough established in American slang to be included in a glossary published in the Virginia Literary Museum on January 6, 1830: "'sockdolager,' 'a decisive blow'--one, in the slang language, 'capable of setting a man thinking.'" It also could mean something or someone big. "There is but one 'sogdollager' in the universe," James Fenimore Cooper wrote in 1838, "and that is in Lake Oswego."

Sockdolager was just one of the outrageous ten-dollar words coined early in the nineteenth century that sprang from the exuberance of the expanding new country. Others were absquatulate for "depart," callithumpian for "a noisy parade," hornswoggle for "cheat," and other s-words like slumgullion for "something disgusting," snollygoster for "a political jobseeker," and slangwhanger for "a partisan speechmaker," as well as skedaddle and Shindig (1857), which both survive today.

On April 14, 1865, sockdolager was a key word in a tragic moment of American history. The Englishman Tom Taylor used it in his comedy, Our American Cousin, to Americanize the play's hero when he spoke the line that got the most laughs: "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old man-trap." As the audience roared, John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. Those were the last words President Abraham Lincoln ever heard.

---

U.S. slang  1) a heavy knock-down blow, a finisher
2) something sensational or exceptional