sockdologer

British  

/ sɒkˈdɒlədʒə /

noun

1. a decisive blow or remark

2. an outstanding person or thing

---

Etymology

Origin of sockdologer

C19: of uncertain origin; perhaps from _sock ² + _doxology (in the sense: the closing act of a church service) + _-er ¹

Example Sentences

The playwright seems to have invented a neologism derived from American slang of the time: A “sockdologer” meant a truth delivered as a defining moment in a situation, an intellectual coup de grace.

From Washington Post

But his “Ring Tailed Doodle Sockdologer” and his “Famous Michigan Mermaid. Half Elephant and Half Sturgeon” were singular beings, and collectible for that reason alone.

From New York Times

The answer was a sockdologer, and the representative of their lordships, after this brief exposition of sea law, made no more interruptions.”

From Scientific American

"That must've bin a sockdologer of a dose the Surgeon gave me," he muttered to himself.

From Project Gutenberg

Snowblind, 266 Soap Creek, 159; Frank M. Brown, drowned near mouth of, 159, 217; Rapid, 217 "Sockdologer, of the World," 222; rapid, 226 Songs of the camp, 73, 74 Sorghum molasses, 172 Spanish Fork, 266 Spanish Trail, Old, 95 Split Mountain Canyon, 57; enter it, 58; end of, 60; length of, 60 Springs in river bottom, 103 Stanton, R. B., proves the White story incorrect, v.; completed Brown expedition, ix.;

From Project Gutenberg