Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to beat up, to thrash.

1960		C. Hooper Brief Authority 60: ‘These boys were chasing us.’ ‘Why?’ One of the European boys spoke up: ‘The policeman told us to donner them.’ [DSAE].
1966		J. Bennett Hawk Alone 145: You watch out [...] and don’t donner the dogs by mistake.
1977		(con. 1930s) G. Butler Karoo Morning 100: I told Bui if he said that again, I’d be happy to donner him up ‘into a raw sosatie.’.
1989		Cape Times 4 Sept. 6: If I meet a cop armed with revolver, truncheon, quirt, tear-gas, rubber bullets and a gun full of birdshot, and he tells me to disperse or he’ll donner me, I don’t argue with him [DSAE].
1990		J.G. Davis Land God Made in Anger 302: They start beating up Jakob. They donnered him something terrible, cracking his ribs, and they burned him with cigarette.
2006		M. Orford Like Clockwork 227: My mother donnered the shit out of me when I was a kid.
2012		Constitutionally Speaking (S. Afr.) 26 Oct. 🌐 Another example is ‘bliksem’ as compared to ‘donner’’.

2. in fig. use, to defeat, to overcome; to reprimand severely.

1965		K. Mackenzie Deserter 79: You are mad, Japie. How can you have a war without shooting Englishmen? And they will donner you eventually [DSAE].
1976		Sun. Times (Jo’burg) 1 Aug. 14: The time has come to ‘donner’ the ‘HNP’ and everything else that stands for stagnation and reaction in South African politics [DSAE].
1987		South 9 July 15: Those who rule wish to save us from the totalitarianism of the left by imposing on us totalitarianism from the right. For most of us the difference is academic. We get ‘donnered’ either way [DSAE].
1996		CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 Donner: A rude word, it comes from the Afrikaans ‘donder’ (thunder). Pronounced ‘dorner’, it means ‘beat up.’ Your rugby team can get donnered in a game, or your boss can donner you if you do a lousy job.