sockdologer
One who dabbles in … er, sock collecting?
One who loves socks a bit too much?
Photo by Shuminweb via Wikimedia Commons.
noun, Older Slang.
- something unusually large, heavy, etc.
- a decisive reply, argument, etc.
- a heavy, finishing blow:
Example: His right jab is a real sockdolager.
In other words, it’s a real doozy of a closing argument, getting the last word, or in today’s slang, a mic drop.
Lest we find ourselves giggling too much at our funny-sounding new word, let me bring you some sorrowful solemnity: sockdologising likely was nearly the last word President Abraham Lincoln ever heard. During the performance of Tom Taylor’s “Our American Cousin,” assassin John Wilkes Booth (who knew the play well) waited for the laughline,
“Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old mantrap!”
Amid the noise as the audience responded in laughter and applause, Booth fired the fatal shot.
Sniffle. Well, now it’s my heart that feels unusually heavy … almost sockdolager-esque you could say.
Lincoln in ‘thinking pose’, 1862, via Wikimedia Commons
