bang v.1
1. to hit, to thump.
Long Meg of Westminster 17: If any one asks you who banged your bones, say, Long Meg of Westminster once met with you. | ||
Four Letters Confuted in Works II (1883–4) 223: A bigge fat lusty wench it is, that hath an arme like an Amazon, and will bang thee abominationly, if euer shee catch thee in her quarters. | ||
Othello II i: The desperate tempest hath so bang’d the Turks That their designment halts. | ||
Love’s Cure II ii: By this Hand, I’ll bang your Brother for this, when I get him alone. | ||
Microcosmus Act IV: Guard your selfe better, or I shall bang your coate. | ||
‘Four-Legg’d Elder’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 122: Poor City maids shed many a tear / When she was lash’d and bang’d. | ||
Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 50: Thou’st been so bang’d about the Stoops. | ||
Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 183: With my Battoon I’le bang his Sconce. | ||
Rover IV i: Belv. What, Blunt has had some damn’d Trick put upon him, cheated, bang’d, or clapt? | ||
Match in Newgate III i: Thou base lying son of a cheating Cit [...] Were it not for the respect I bear this noble Companie, I wou’d so bang thee! | ||
Writings (1704) 12: Thus Fir’d by heat of Argument, / This Disputants to Boxing went; / [...] / To it they fell, and Bang’d each other. | ‘Poet’s Ramble after Riches’||
Dict. Canting Crew. | ||
Revels of the Gods 7: With that the Great Jupiter, rose in an Anger / And looking on Pallas, was ready to Bang-her. | ||
‘Sally in our Alley’ [song] My master comes, like any Turk, And bangs me most severely. | ||
Tale of Three Bonnets (1785) 11: Vile whore and jade, the woody bang her. | ||
Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 143: This he did in Revenge [...] after having been so soundly bang’d by him. | ||
Homer Travestie (1764) I 137: They’ll be sorry, and fit to hang, / To hear how we the Trojans bang. | ||
Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 402: Tho’ you should escape / Without his help from this d----d scrape, / And save your hide from being bang’d, / He hopes to live to see you hang’d. | ||
song in Bullfinch 94: We make the boasted Frenchmen fly, / And bang the haughty Don. | ||
Works (1842) 210/2: O ay my wife she dang me, And aft my wife did bang me. | O ay my Wife she Dang me in||
Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 140: I could wish I had been hang’d, / Or at a whipping-post well bang’d. | ||
‘Naval Victories’ in | II (1979) 163: La Clue off the streights was well bang’d by Boscawen.||
Poetical Works 138: Valiant Edward Steel [...] Did bang these boobies and these loobies, / Until he made them reel. | ‘Valiant Edward Steel’||
‘Life in London’ in James Catnach (1878) 127: To bang and wallop the Charlies / And pommil them in the dark. | ||
in Bk of Sports 100: Some was short and some was tall, / But it’s very well known I banged them all, / For I dous’d their heads against the wall. | ||
Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 22 Oct. n.p.: My man [...] wants all the money I can raise, and if he don’t get it he will bang me. | ||
Manchester Spy (NH) 1 Nov. n.p.: Only the savage has practical dominion over the ‘weaker sex’ simply because he bangs his recalcitrant female in lordly style! | ||
‘Wonderful Mr. Spurgeon’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 136: He bangs the country east and west. | ||
‘’Arry on Niggers’ Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: Wot good’s British bottom and grit, / If when the dashed Niggers hinsult us, we can’t bang the beggars a bit? | ||
Prison, Camp and Pulpit 136: I went for that crowd with the poker and banged them in a lively fashion. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 13/3: How would the bullock-driver get on if there was nothing but gentlemanly language in existence, and he couldn’t dash the off-sider, and tell him to mind where he was going if he didn’t want his gory horn knocked off his profane head and the rest of his condemned carcase banged to -- -- -- --?’. | ||
Liza of Lambeth (1966) 97: When she comes in ’e start bangin’ ’er abaht. | ||
Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Nov. 1/3: [He] banged boniface two such brutal blows as laid the landlord low. | ||
People of the Abyss iv: There was my mar, she was enough, a-bangin’ the kids about an’ makin’ the ole man mis’rable when ’e come ’ome. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Nov. 28/2: The feature of the fight was the series of wild rallies in which Keys cut loose, and with amazing energy slapped and banged and bashed and uppercut and walloped and jabbed McCoy. | ||
Man’s Grim Justice 186: Now and then one would bang me with a black jack. | ||
Messrs Bat and Ball 3: Bewildered Turks have seen a Cockney bang / Half-volleys near the Jordan. | ‘To King Cricket’||
(con. 1912) George Brown’s Schooldays 93: You’ll say what I jolly well tell you to say or I’ll bang you one on the snout. | ||
(con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 171: Bleedin’ screws [...] would bang you, as quick as look at you. | ||
Apprentices (1970) I i: I’d bang you Wags, but I respect your football. | ||
In This Corner (1974) 222: He just banged me all over the place. He was a real good hitter. | in Heller||
Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I’ll bang you one in a minute, leave her alone will you! | ‘Second Time Around’||
in Damon Runyon (1992) 46: When they miss, you bang them with everything you got. | ||
Crosskill [ebook] ‘If you give them a hard time, they’ll bang you around’. | ||
Awaydays 15: I bang a lad under the nose and his top lip just bursts. | ||
Hooky Gear 31: Just provoke us into a massive off. Then they can do us for that. Bang us about and do us. | ||
What They Was 46: I’ll bang her mum in the face. |
2. in context of sex.
(a) to copulate with; like many sl. terms involving sex, this implies an aggression irrespective of any affection; usu. of men, but occas. of women.
Wits Paraphras’d 91: You’l be the first your self will bang me, / I’d rather farr your Grace wou’d hang me. | ||
‘Gie the Lass Her Fairin’’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 258: The mair ye bang, the mair she squeals. | ||
‘Reels O’Bogie’ in | (1979) 194: The lads ne’er think it is amiss / To bang the holes whereout they piss.||
‘Laundress And Her Ass’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 4: Why yer honer, ’tis true what I’m telling you, / His cock has been bang-in(g) my ass. | ||
‘Old Gingerbread’ in Bawdy N.Y. State MS. n.p.: Now my old friend take a piece of advice, / And don’t bang any old whore for that aint nice. | ||
in Erotic Muse (1992) 51: I chased a parson’s daughter, / And I banged her when I caught her, / Now I cannot pass my water in Kansas. | ||
in Limerick (1953) 118: There once was a sacred baboon / That lived by the river Rangoon, / And all of the women / That came to go swimmin’ / He’d bang by the light of the moon. | ||
letter in Charters (1993) 202: Day I got her to bang Hal Chase. | ||
Gaily, Gaily 22: Doc entered his office and found Mr. Bolger, head of the composing room, banging a naked lady on his couch. | ||
Choirboys (1976) 342: She banged him in his office one afternoon. | ||
Dress Gray (1979) 271: Hell, they probably bang sheep in his home county. Who knows? | IV||
(con. 1920s) Legs 92: A piece of tail’s more than climbing on and banging until you blow your load. [Ibid.] 157: In my mind, I’m already in a notch joint banging a broad. | ||
Guardian G2 19 Aug. 5: Elaine bangs the housewife over the road and is very, very raunchy with the local cop. | ||
Shame the Devil 99: He fucked her [...] imagining he was banging one of the many trophy wives he had seen walking through the lobby of the hotel. | ||
Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 Did I take the opportunity to bitch while I was banging his wife? No! | ||
Ten Storey Love Song 170: Banging his new girlfriend [...] in the bedroom next door. | ||
(con. 1973) Johnny Porno 21: Maybe you’re still banging him, I wanna know. | ||
(con. 1980s) Skagboys 86: Normnally ah’d be twitchin [...] up here at this time ay night, especially as ah’m aboot tae bang one ay their birds. | ||
Decent Ride 40: Suzanne wir convinved that eh wis this French waiter’s [son] at first. She’d banged the cunt the night before me. | ||
The Force [ebook] [A] midnight tour is usually just an excuse to get drunk with your buddies or bang some whore, or both. | ||
Price You Pay 142: I passed out in a toilet cubicle and woke up to him banging the chick from the next table against the hand basins. | ||
Silver [ebook] He told me to bend over across this desk [...] then he banged me from behind. | ||
Joey Piss Pot 8: ‘[W]hoever this kid was you were banging, he was owed that beating’. |
(b) to have sexual intercourse; intransitive use compared to the transitive sense 1a above.
Facetiae Americana 19: She’d wrestle, bang, cohabit, futuore, fornicate and frig. | ‘A French Crisis’ in||
(con. 1868) in | Nell Kimball by Herself (1981) 47: You’ll be gone, worn out inside from a mess of brats, one every nine months, and a dirty old goat banging away at you every minute.||
On The Road (1972) 43: Marylou’s all for it [divorce], but she insists on banging in the interim. | ||
(con. 1960s) Wanderers 184: For all I know, she’s been bangin’ away since junior high school. | ||
Memoirs of an Old Bastard 144: She bangs like a Bofar gun. | ||
Happy Like Murderers 156: She wanted some big nigger to throw her down and fucking bang on top of her and treat her like a dog. | ||
Get Your Cock Out 37: Mincey carried on banging but the screaming was putting him off. | ||
Killer Tune (2008) 90: Don’t you think I’d have been banging on their door last night instead of banging you. | ||
On the Bro’d 187: Ray was [...] banging this blonde hottie. | ||
Empty Wigs (t/s) 211: It is well known that Tom Pearce’s grey mare died from internal bleeding after being overbanged by lusty woozled oggies. |
(c) (US) to masturbate; one of many terms for the verb that relate to hitting.
(con. 1942) Gallery (1948) 195: Fressssssh! Whaddya lookin at? Didja bang yaself silly all las night? |
3. to outdo.
(a) to defeat, to surpass; esp. as phr. bang bob-tail, bang everything etc [Cumbrian dial.].
Lottery 2: Ah, think, my lord! how I should grieve to see your lordship bang’d. | ||
Masque of Britannia Prologue: Should I again go to sea – and bang mounseer? | ||
Cumberland Ballads (1805) 74: Of Nancy Dawson, Molly Mog, / Though thousands sing wi’ glee, / This village beauty, out and out, / She bangs them aw to see. | ‘The Thuirsby Witch’||
Rhymes of Northern Bards 296: Thou bangs them a’ lass every day /[ ...] / For hide and hue, ma bonny hinny, / Thou bangs the crew. | Jr. (ed.)||
Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. | ||
Clockmaker I 284: That is a narrer squeak, it fairly bangs all. | ||
Paddiana I 154: Och, murther! is it mustard with salmon? That bangs all! | ||
Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. | ||
Little Ragamuffin 352: Of all the strange stories I ever heard, this bangs everything. | ||
Innocents at Home 328: For clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don’t bang anything that ever I saw. | ||
‘’Arry at the Sea-Side’ Punch 10 Sept. 111/2: Larf, Charlie? It bangs Arthur Roberts, and makes a chap bloomin’ nigh bust. | ||
‘’Arry on African Affairs’ Punch 22 Feb. 90/2: [He] bangs Rothschild in talking of millions. |
(b) to make an impression on.
Daily News 1 Nov. 6/1: This is now being banged into the heads that have planned... this campaign [F&H]. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 11 July 17/3: And many a soul will grind its fangs; / And mutter as you’re let through: / ‘Why – wot’s he done? I’m sure it bangs / Old Nick, how some coves get through!’. |
(c) to excite, to thrill.
Pal Joey 41: You are banging them right over every where you go. | ||
Portrait of a Young Man Drowning (1963) 154: It didn’t bang me to sit around listening to a lot of guys trying to out-holler each other. | ||
Rakim Told Me 209: ‘[T]hat song was the one that really banged them out on the streets when the single hit’. |
(d) (US black) to make an impact.
Source Oct. 218: Also sure to bang hard on the streets. | ||
Check the Technique 273: ‘I said to myself, “We need somethin’ that’s going to be more up-tempo, something that can bang in the clubs”’. |
4. a euph. for damn v.
Tony Lumpkin in Town (1780) 29: Now, bang me, if I know what trade that is. |
5. to dismiss from a job.
Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: Fired, Banged, Shot Out – When a performer is discharged he is one of the above. |
6. to consume a stimulant [bang n.1 (6a)].
(a) (drugs) to inject a narcotic.
Und. and Prison Sl. | ||
AS XXVII:1 24: BANGING, vbl. Taking heroin intravenously. | ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’||
Imabelle 30: Goldy [...] cooked a C&M speedball over the flame. He groaned as he banged himself in the arm. | ||
Pinktoes (1989) 41: I haven’t been banging with cocaine and morphine. | ||
Drugs from A to Z (1970) 37: bang [...] (2) to inject narcotics, as in ‘I was banging heroin’. | ||
Airtight Willie and Me 68: I was so franctic to bang some quality I missed the vein twice. | ||
Bk of Jargon 339: bang: [...] As a verb, to shoot up. | ||
Workin’ It 28: The next place I moved, the people didn’t snort. They was banging. | ||
(con. 1972) Circle of Six 75: Had they any information to trade, they’d do it for a price that would inevitably end up banged through their veins. |
(b) to throw back a drink.
One Lonely Night 78: The boys in the kitchen were banging their first drinks down. | ||
Gonif 94: One night, sitting in the car near Lincoln Park banging a couple of shots of good hooch. |
(c) to inject someone with heroin.
Entrapment (2009) 118: The minute I got my blouse off that night he banged me again [...] it brought me up deathly sick over the wash basin. | ‘Watch Out for Daddy’ in||
Pimp 95: My eyes begged him to tie me up and bang me. |
7. (US) to inflict, to ‘hit with’.
On the Pad 100: Your partner, he’s going to be the bad guy, gets out and starts banging away with summons tags. | ||
Corner (1998) 180: He’ll go back to Judge Johnson at Circuit Court to get banged with the whole ten years. |
8. (US black) to play music.
Powder 16: MTV banging the hell out of the first clip. | ||
🎵 [They] bangin’ Makaveli 7, crankin’ my ’Pac up. | ‘Choppin’ Blades’||
Young Team 78: The tunes is bangin. |
9. US drugs to sell drugs.
Wire ser. 3 ep. 3 [TV script] They’re still running product. Still got kids banging out there. | ‘Dead Soldiers’
10. (US) to drive fast (along).
Widespread Panic 177: I banged Beverley, straight downtown. My Packard pimpmobile performed. |
In derivatives
usu. of a woman, sexually alluring.
(con. 1980s) Skagboys 497: Phoar, Judy Garland looks well fucking bangable in that gingham skirt. | ||
On the Bro’d 29: ‘I know some hotties there who have bangable sisters we could smash with’. |
In compounds
(mainly Irish) a constable; thus bangbeggar hall, a magistrate’s court.
in Chronicles of All Saints’ Derby (1881) n.p.: Ordered that John Lane shall be Bang-Beggar and the parish to give him a coat. | ||
Hibernian Jrnl 27 Oct. 4/3: D— of L— a Tinker (makes two holes, in the stop;ping of one) [...] Capt. Braganza — a Fustian weaver [...] Archbishop Bang-beggar — a Thresher. | ||
Dublin Eve. Packet 13 July 3/2: The other [...] ‘charley’, the Bang-beggar [...] was wounded in the thigh. | ||
Dublin Eve. Mail 5 June 2/1: Alexander Kimins, grave-digger [...] Thoas McCaul, bang-beggar, Wm Paterson, corporation constable. | ||
Newry Examiner 13 Sept. 2/3: The daily pergrinations of a certain important personage in uniform who rejoices in the title of a ‘bang-beggar’. | ||
Newry Examiner 23 Apr. 3/5: The people of Armagh entered into voluntary subscriptions and employed bang-beggars to go round the city. | ||
Sligo Champion 3 Nov. 3/6: We [...] mentally resolved, if the responsible situation of a ‘bang-beggar’ should be vacated [...] to support with our vote and interest, ‘Sergeant Griffith’. | ||
Barrel Organ 29: Owd Pudge, th’ bang-beggar, coom runnin’ into th’ pew . | ||
Lancaster Gaz. 17 Dec. 2/5: There is a bang beggar attached to the chapel of St John’s — a worthy man [who] carries a formidable mace [...] which he not seldom uses [...] to ‘bang the beggars yeds’. | ||
Sheffield Gloss. 10: Bangbeggar Hall, the magistrates’ hall. | ||
Gl;oucester Citizen 23 Oct. 4/6: The beadle’s uniform — a blue coat with a red collar [...] a cocked hat and the long staff [...] of office [...] But the parish ‘bang-beggar’ has fallen upon evil days. | ||
Lincs Chron. 29 May 6/2: The ‘bang-beggar’ who on weekdays whipped tramps [...] and on Sundays paraded the church [...] rapping male sleepers on the head with the knobby end of of his wand. | ||
Derby Dly Teleg. 5 Nov. 3/4: Another title of the Beadle [...] was ‘Bang-Beggar’. |
(W.I.) having a large paunch.
cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
(W.I.) a starving child.
cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
see outfit n.1 (3b)
a drunkard.
Paraemiologia 102: A notable bang-pitcher. |
see under straw n.
see separate entries.
see separate entry.
In phrases
to empty a pot of beer.
Works (1869) I 70: He to the Ale-house went, and bang’d the Pitcher. | ‘Travels of Twelve-pence’ in||
Proverbs 216: Drinking phrases: Lick your dish. Wind up your bottom. Play off your dust. Hold up your dagger hand. To bang the pitcher. | ||
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 569: The master of the house [...] loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick his dish. | (trans.)
to smoke marijuana.
DAUL 22/2: Bang a reefer. To smoke a cigarette of marijuana. ‘I got the leaps (nervous reaction) after that trick (crime). I’m gonna hit the camp (flat) and bang a few reefers.’. | et al.||
Traffic In Narcotics 303: bang a reefer. To smoke a marihuana cigarette. | ||
(con. 1940s) Reprieve 237: A reefer or muggle is blasted, banged, and blown—never smoked. |
1. (US) to travel.
Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 17 Jan. 4/2: I’ve banged around the world a bit / Since I’ve been roamin’ free. |
2. of a person, to make one’s presence felt, with little practical result.
Joint (1972) 188: We had a somewhat alcoholic reunion and banged around Manhattan together for a couple of weeks. | letter 31 Aug. in||
That Eye, The Sky 72: Henry Warburton bangs around. | ||
I, Fatty 160: A batch of actors [...] on the lam from Los Angeles were generally banging around. |
3. of an item, a situation, to linger, without coming to a conclusion.
‘Don’t Give Your Right Name’ in Goulart (1967) 35: It’s been banging around in the courts for three years. | ||
Scrambled Yeggs 135: After I banged that around it didn’t look so good after all. |
4. to beat up.
Eddie’s World 11: I managed to get the name of the guy from her, the one banged her around. | ||
Rough Riders 67: They banged her around pretty good. Tried to rape her, too. |
(US) to fight, to beat up.
Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 3: bang heads – A fight, rumble, scuffle; physically violent scene. | ||
Blind Ambition 14: [No]w I was relishing the glamour without [. . .] watching police bang heads. |
(US gay) to achieve orgasm.
Queens’ Vernacular. |
(orig. Aus.) to rate as an enthusiastic sexual performer.
Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words 27: Bang [...] to copulate [...] More emphatic is bang like a hammer. | ||
DSUE (8th edn) 47/2: since ca. 1950. |
(orig. Aus.) to rate as an enthusiastic sexual performer; usu. said by men of women.
Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 35: I thought, kiss my arse if that sheilah doesn’t bang like a shithouse door. | ||
Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | ||
Burial of the Vine 135: And that woman, the painter whom I had believed to be pure, childlike; here she looked ready to bang like a shithouse door in a whirlwind. | ||
Dead Birds (1998) 137: She was dirty, I’m telling you. She banged like a lavatory door . . . and about as often. | ||
G’DAY 87: If the tart shows a certain enthusiasm for sexual activity, she’s said to bang like the dunny door in a gale. | ||
🎵 on ...in Time [album] Group grope, bunch punch / Gang bang, daisy chain / Leg work, Swedish culture, S & M / We are shagging like wild rattlesnakes / We bang like the shithouse door in a gale. | ‘Zeitgest’||
Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 217: [She] bangs like a barn door in a force ten gale. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 15: bangs like a leaky pipe when the tap’s turned on/like a shithouse rat/like a dunny door in a high wind in regard to an enthusiastic fornicator. | ||
Killing Time in Las Vegas [ebook] That girl bangs like a truckstop door! She’s my sister, I should know. | ‘Daddy’s Girl’ in
1. (US) to murder.
Smashing Detective Stories Jan. 🌐 You admit that Rumley was banged off, don’t you? | ‘Dead Men Don’t Move’ in
2. to ejaculate.
Get Your Cock Out 80: He banged off almost the second he was locked in the mongy’s wet velvet shitlocker. |
3. see bang v.2
see under bishop n.2
1. to rush away, to leave quickly [SE bang, to make a noise].
Marvel 2 Feb. 47: Having voted this a good idea, we banged out. | ||
Last Exit to Brooklyn 112: [A] drunken soldier banged out of a booth and said comeon and glasses fell. |
2. (US prison) to murder or beat up.
Smashing Detective Stories Jan. 🌐 How come she knew her old man was banged out? | ‘Dead Men Don’t Move’ in||
Flesh and Blood (1978) 18: ‘Cops, man. That’s why he’s here. He banged out some bacon.’ [...] ‘No shit? You beat up a cop?’. | ||
Double Bang 198: A light-skinned black guy. Banged him out with a Twenty-two silencer. | ||
Prison Sl. 94: Scrag To kill someone. […] (Archaic: bang out). | ||
Austin American-Statesman (TX) 4 Oct. 9/4: Texas Prison Gang Slang [...] Bang: Fight to kill. |
3. (drugs) to adulterate a narcotic drug.
Collura (1978) 163: A shipment of nearly pure heroin [...] would produce a profit of 3,000 per cent when ‘banged out’ and distributed in diluted amounts on the street. |
4. see bang up v.2 (2)
5. see knock out v. (1)
(US) to talk incessantly (and tediously).
From Here to Eternity (1998) 923: He was up with it all evening while you guys were banging ear. | ||
Garden of Sand (1981) 170: She was banging his ear a mile a minute. |
(US) to masturbate.
Queens’ Vernacular. |
(US) to surpass everything.
Clockmaker I 87: Well, well [...] if that don’t bang the bush!! | ||
Sam Slick in England I 79: Well, that bangs the bush, now! |
see under gong n.2
see separate entries.
see separate entry.