Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the last word in an argument.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1884		C.F. Lummis letter 13 Nov. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 91: Wasn’t that a corker? I said amen!
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 13: corker n. 1. An unanswerable fact or argument; that which makes further discussion or action unnecessary or impossible; a settler.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases ’ in DN II:i 29: corker, n. An unanswerable fact or argument.

2. a knockout punch; similarly in fig. use.

1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 158: I let him have it, right, right, right, jist three corkers.
1842		J. Labern ‘Man For a Family’ Comic Songs 24: Their parents come and make a rout, / And vow they’ll give my brats a Corker.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 186: Penitensherry would ha’ been a corker; but work’us! work’us!
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 57: Cried Fabian one day to his brother, / ‘Now this is a corker to me’.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Dec. 10/4: [pic. caption] Big Six’s Corker.
1891		Huddersfield Chron. 4 Sept. n.p.: Rads roughed on me and called me [unclear text]. I’ve bunged them up — a corker.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 1 Dec. 130: It must have been a corker, and no mistake.
1919		Bisbee Dly Rev. (AZ) 10 Dec. 3/4: I have been doing this Japanese wrestling [...] they have taught me three new throws that are perfect corkers.
1920		Marvel 31 July 3: I’m expecting Pringle every moment to get him a corker and finish him off.
1960		F. Keinzly Tangahano 166: I gave him a corker on the chin.
1969		in DARE.

3. (also corkerina) anything or anyone excellent, superlative, first-rate; sometimes used ironically.

1851		Leics. Mercury 19 Apr. 3/7: This is a corker, said one. This is a clipper, said another.
1869		Sthn Reporter & Cork Courier 17 June 2/5: A great sacrilegious ‘bell-wether’ was welcomed by the crowd as a ‘corker’.
1870		T. Brierley Nonsense and Tomfoolery 17: ‘That’s a corker,’ he says.
1881		Daily L.A. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: He calls a beautiful woman a ‘lalla,’ a ‘dandy,’ or a ‘corker,’ and an ugly one a ‘chromo’.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 394: Tom Donnelly. Tom was a corker. He would knock a man down just for fun, and then ask him for a chew of tobacco, and likely enough give him a kick when he gave it back to him.
1899		A.C. Gunter M.S. Bradford Special 202: Give up the German band and wandering hand-organ, even if the monkey is a corker.
1903		S.F. Call 22 Nov. 8/2: Before Nettie Jeliffe ridiculed him he had pronounced her a ‘clipper,’ after she had ridiculed him he pronounced her emphatically a ‘corker’ [...] these words [...] both express admiration.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 233: This was a corker! We could only watch what happened in silent awe.
1903		Goodwin’s Wkly (Salt Lake City, UT) 31 Jan. 5/2: The sly city dads rubbed it into the poor telephone people by limiting the term to thirty years [...] Wasn’t that a corkerina.
1911		Mencken letter 19 Nov. in Riggio Dreiser-Mencken Letters 1 (1986) 81: Dell’s notice is a corker: it ought to sell a lot of books.
1911		Truth (Perth) 14 Jan. 8/8: Now the other bloke’s a corker, / He are werry holey too.
1917		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 28 July [synd. col.] My best girl’s a corker, not the kind that’s slow.
1919		‘Sapper’ Mufti 10: E’s a fair corker is Ginger with a Lewis.
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 105: I’d thought up two or three corkers [...] he could take his pick.
1935		D. Parker ‘Waltz’ in Parker (1943) 93: A peach of a world, too. A true little corker.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 17 Mar. [synd. col.] Damon Runyon’s new film [...] (which they say is a corker).
1952		E. Bushmiller ‘Nancy’ 27 Aug. [synd. comic strip] Honestly – you’re a corker [W&F].
1959		H.E. Bates Breath of French Air (1985) 225: That was a corker.
1961		J. Scarne Complete Guide to Gambling 676: Corker – a gambler who is unusual, either good or bad.
1973		(con. mid-1960s) J. Patrick Glasgow Gang Observed 60: The latest of these [an all-night party] had been, in the gang phrase ‘a right corker’.
1982		P. Redmond Tucker and Co 85: Corker! That’s it, isn’t it?
1983		S. King Christine 547: She’s a corker, is Petunia [i.e. a truck].
1988		A. Hollinghurst Swimming-Pool Library (1998) 36: Quite a corker, too.
1999		Guardian Weekend 5 June 41: His first job [...] was a real corker.
2000		Guardian 22 Feb. 24: It’s another corker.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 73: Serge returned to the machine [...] ‘Isn’t she a corker?’.
2011		Week 8 Jan. 25/2: In short, it’s a ‘corker’, said [...] Daily Mail.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 123: This bit fits here Mademoiselle. Ah... you knew it! And why don’t you... you’re such a corker.

4. in attrib. use of sense 3.

1928		Register (Adelaide) 15 Nov.23/3: I got a corker brain-wave.
1934		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 1 Mar. 10/4: Cripes, it was a corker tack.

5. something very difficult.

1881		‘’Arry on Fashion’ Punch 10 Sept. 110/2: As to ’ow fashions start, that’s a corker.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 13: corker n. […] 2. Something very difficult.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 293: Billy looked back and said, he’d ‘rather double forty bloody ’orns than cross that bloody bridge again,’ and [...] I agreed with him just then; for it was a ‘corker’ and no mistake.
1905		Sporting Times 4 Mar. 2/3: It was a dead corker.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 45: He’d of strung you up by the nuts we was t’stay out there. Pa’s a corker.

6. (also corkerina) an attractive young woman.

1890		A.C. Gunter Miss Nobody of Nowhere 86: My erratic younger sister [...] Florence, to use a Western expression, being a ‘corker’!
1903		Ade in Wilmington Messenger (NC) 25 Jan. 10/1: Onmce there was a lovely Two-Stepper who [...] met a Corkerina who had come to visit a School Friend.
1911		Alaska Citizen 28 Aug. 7/2: One day a new corkerina struck the town.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 211: My word. She’s a corker, eh?
1923		‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 145: She’s a corker for looks.
1933		T.T. Flynn ‘Deadly Orchid’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 105/2: Corker, isn’t she?
1947		J.P. Marquand Polly Fulton 153: Heatherbloom had turned Polly into a perfect corker.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 21: Dung. Sixteenth-century word for a corker. A smasher.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 51: A little corker. The only snag was that drippy accent.
2000		Guardian Rev. 10 June 2: Camilla is a bit of a corker.

7. (Aus.) an unanswerable lie.

1895

Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Corker, the highest lie.