Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a knock-down blow, a heavy blow; thus fig., something conclusive; also as v. to beat, knock down.

1824		Emerald (N.Y.) 16 Oct. 109/1–2: Round 16. – Counter-hitting in the face, and some sockdolagers.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 38: the more he dealt out his sockdolagers the more they wou’d be his lick-spittles.
1834		Sun (N.Y.) 15 Feb. 3/1: I mean if she don’t behave herself she’ll get a socdolager in the face.
1837		R.M. Bird Nick of the Woods III 32: You switches gentlemen, do you, you exflunctified, perditioned rascal? Ar’n’t you got it, you nigger-in-law to old Sattan? you ’tarnal half-imp, you? H’yar’s for you, you dog, and thar’s for you, you dog’s dog ! H’yar’s the way I pay you in a small-change of sogdologers!
1838		D. Crockett in Meine Crockett Almanacks (1955) 126: He gave me a real sockdologer.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 169: Shall I give him a slockdolager onder the ear?
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 9 Apr. n.p.: The fight was ended by a sockdologer [...] full on Mr Pea-Nutt’s sneezer .
1845		W.T. Porter Big Bear of Arkansas (1847) 41: As I aimed a sockdollager at him he ducked his head.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Mar. 1/3: Smith gave Bill a stockdologer in his ivory box.
1850		Lancaster Gaz. 27 July 6/5: It was shot for shot, dig for dig, slodologer for slockdologer.
1851		‘Bingo’ in Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 61: This seemed to be a ‘socdoliger;’ (which translated into Latin, means a ne plus ultra).
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 1 Jan. n.p.: Horace received a severe sockdollager on his muffin-trap, and [...] dealt his adversary a stunner on his snuff-mill, which drew the claret.
1856		Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 3/3: ‘Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary’ [...] HYSTE Verb particularly active. To toss as Sancho Panza, to kick, to pitch (out at window), to shove (down stairs), [...] to administer a slockdolager, &c.
1858		Westmorland Gaz. 11 Sept. 8/5: [from N.Y. Teleg.] The Britishers, we hear, are not a whittle less excited and slogdollagised than we air.
1859		C. Mackay Life and Liberty in America 105: Among the pure Americanisms may be cited the following: [...] Socdologer, a knock-down blow.
[1862		S. Aus. Advertiser (Adelaide) 13 Oct. 3/6: Brother jonathan’s Appeal to Brother Sambo [...] Up, Niggers! slash, smash, sack and smite, slogdollagise and slay ’em].
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 115/2: I and Curly now got at it, and this gave Joe an opportunity of jumping to his feet and of ending in a real sockdolager.
1870		Cheshire Obs. 21 May 6/2: The latter gentleman retaliated with a ‘slockdologer’.
1878		St Paul Globe (MN) 20 Oct. 2/2: A ‘sockdolager’ had been given Hughes [...] He sirvived it and was as strong in the fight.
1887		World (N.Y.) 2 June 3/4: What a slaughter It was! Seventeen men stepped to the plate, and one after another gave audible evidence of his ability to handle a wagon tongue. The sound of the sockdolager was heard with alarming frequency, followed by the shouts of the excited crowd on grand stand and bleacheries.
1890		Sporting Times 22 Mar. 2/2: She [...] caught him a regular good old Westinghouse sockdolager under the left ear.
1891		D.U. Sloan Fogy Days, and Now 136: I was posted and asked the old lady how old she was when she married, and this was the sockdolager.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 81: Stock Dollager, a finishing stroke.
1901		T. Hammond On Board a Whaler 329: We got out of that all hunky [...] when a reg’lar sock-dolliger come a-pilin’ up higher [...] and higher, till I swow, it looked as if the whole dummed ocean was comin’ in a-top of us.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Dec. 1/1: The latest strategy knocks spots off the finger-print system as a sockdologer for Sykes.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 13 Apr. 6/3: [A] great right sockdollager on the short ribs that made the coon grunt .
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 20: socdolager, n. ‘That was a socdolager of a hymn.’ Something impressive or conclusive.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 372: sock-dollager, n. A knockout blow, argument, etc.
1913		Dly Signal (Crowley, LA) 8 Sept. 2/1: A sockdolager is a slang word [...] often used for a knock-down blow, a settler or coup-de-grace.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 27 Feb. 3/1: [I]t's time they [i.e. racecourse cheats] were sockdollogered into a condition that renders them harmless .
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1927		Gloucester Citizen 24 Sept. 5/2: A sockdolager is a knock-out blow.
1934		S. Beckett More Pricks than Kicks 108: ‘Plato!’ sneered the P.B. ‘Did I hear the word Plato? That dirty little Borstal Boehme!’ That was a sockdologer for someone if you like.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 335: You gather it in a knot [...] and you got a fist that smacks anybody gettin’ in its way a sockdolager.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 568: Most of these, of course, had their brief days and then disappeared, but there were others that got into the common vocabulary and still survive, e.g., blizzard, to hornswoggle, sockdolager and rambunctious.
1943		G.A. Little Malachi Horan Remembers 115: Cooper went down for the ninth and last time. Dan had hit him a socdollogher that broke his jaw like you would a match.
1961		Elmira Advertiser (NY) 20 May 4/3: A sockdolager was a blow to end all blows.
1972		Circleville Herald (OH) 28 June 4/3: Winding up for a stockdologer in her West Virgina talk, Mrs Bentley said [etc].
1979		Newcastle Jrnl 13 Nov. 8/5: Thery [...] learned a few odd facts about such obscure things as sockdolagers.

2. a exceptional person or thing, esp. if large or forceful.

1838		J.F. Cooper Home as Found II 72: There is but one ‘sogdollager’ in the universe, and that is in Lake Oswego [DA].
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England I 257: A first chop orator, a great diplomater, and a top sawyer of a man, in short – he is a Socdologer.
1867		St Cloud Jrnl (MN) 5 Dec. 3/3: ‘Something of the “sockdologer” style would suit us precisely’.
1871		Memphis Avalanche 24 Apr. n.p.: The Radicals evidently consider the Kuklux Bill a sockdolager, after which the South will have nothing more to say, but to knock under and obey.
1878		Elo Co. Advocate (Ridgway, PA) 14 Mar. 2/1: ‘Why do you charge two dollars a year for the Chronicle, when I can get the New-York Sockdolager — a bigger paper — for a dollar and a half?’ .
1883		J.R. Lowell To Mr John Bartlett [who had sent a 7-lb trout] n.p.: Fit for an Abbot Theleme ... He lies there, the sogdologer! [F&H].
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 169: The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit – and then rip comes another flash and another sockdologer.
1894		Pall Mall Gaz. 3 Sept. 9/1: In fishing [...] you never know what may take the fly; it may be a sprat, it may be a sockdolager.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 8: socdolager n. [Prob. a metathesis for doxology.] Something of great size. ‘That fish is a socdolager.’.
1903		Eve.-Times Republican (Marshalltown, IA) 27 June 1/4: Sockdolager, the biggest muskellunge ever captured.
1910		L.C. Curtiss ‘Disjecta Membra’ in DN III vi 458: sockdologer, n. A very tremendous person or thing. ‘Wasn’t that a sockdologer of a man?’.
1923		M. Garahan Stiffs 195: Cherry said these sort of prizes were always regular sock-dologers.
c.1930		(ref. to mid-19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 30: Men who wore kid gloves and smoked cheroots and ordered wine, and were real sockdolagers.
1939		Akron Beacon Jrnl (OH) 19 Apr. 22/1: Sockdolager Taken — Twenty-three and a half pounder of silver catfish.
1947		S.J. Perelman ‘No Dearth of Mirth’ in Keep It Crisp 84: That’s a sockdologer! Mind if I use it in my column?
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 286: sockdolager: n. Something surprising in size or quality.
1963		Birmingham Dly Post 5 Apr. 4/8: Both systems are capable of yielding the occasional sockdolager.
1968		(con. mid-19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 73: The defrocked Mormon, was suspected of printing and circulating a sockdolager of an inflammatory handbill.
1982		Philadelphia Inquirier (PA) 28 Sept. 9/5: Brace yourself for a sockdolager of a winter.