smasher

American  

[smash-er] / ˈsmæʃ ər /

noun

1. a person or thing that smashes.

2. a person or thing that is excellent, impressive, extraordinary, or the like.

   That new off-Broadway show is a real smasher.

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smasher British  

/ ˈsmæʃə /

noun

1. informal a person or thing that is very attractive or outstanding

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Etymology

Origin of smasher

First recorded in 1785–95; smash + -er ¹

Example Sentences

David Sheppard and Avante Brown were canvassing residents for a solar company recently when they stumbled onto the atom smasher.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 7, 2025

After I slapped my beef patty onto the grill, Paquette handed me a steel burger smasher.

From Slate • Aug. 11, 2025

And it needed the world’s biggest atom smasher CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to produce the extreme surge of energies simulating those 1 trillionth to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 9, 2024

In such a universe, a black hole appearing inside an atom smasher becomes much more feasible, potentially revealing insights into the very nature of gravity.

From Scientific American • Feb. 14, 2023

Eventually two other Cavendish scientists invented a more powerful proton-beam device, while in California Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley produced his famous and impressive cyclotron, or atom smasher, as such devices were long excitingly known.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson