bang n.1
1. as an act of violence.
(a) a blow, a hit, as aimed at and received by a person; also fig. use [ON banga, to hammer].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| ‘Bloody Battle between a Taylor and a Louse’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 478: Then the Taylor got his Goose, and he threw it at the Louse, / And gave her Bang on the side. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Hist. of Peter and Betteries 14: Hang the rogue, I care not a straw for thee take my word, I can give thee bang for bang [...] I’ll bang thy rogue’s coat by and by. | |
| Jamie and Bess v: Ye snarlin’ Critics, spare your bang, / It’s nae for you I write my Sang, / Sae steek your gab, for ye’ll be wrang, / To think to tease me; / Ere I reply, ye’se a ga’e hang. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 15 Oct. 38: He closed the right fist and hit the crocodile an awful bang, fairly in the middle of the right eye. | |
| ‘A Hooligan in Love’ Sporting Times 17 Nov. 1/4: I oftentimes give vent / To my love for ’er by fetchin’ ’er a bang, / It ain’t nothin’ like the sport there is in downin’ some old gent. | |
| Nights in Town 305: Stop the fight. I forbid the bangs! | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Dly News (NY) 3 Mar. 6/2: Gang Slang. These ‘Circus’ guys [...] weren’t looking for trouble. They ddn’t want to get a bang’. |
(b) (US) a murder.
| Double Bang 209: If you’re so slick, tell me how to do this chick without making it look like a street bang. |
2. in the context of sex.
(a) a pelvic thrust during intercourse.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
(b) (also bang-bang) an act of sexual intercourse, used in both hetero- and homosexual contexts.
| Athenian Spy 282: Give us a good plain Earthen Platter, that will endure a sound Bang, and while we eat in’t we’re safer from Poyson, then if all our Meat were serv’d up in Unicorns’ Horns. | |
| ‘She Grippet at the Girtest O’t’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 261: She pay’d him twice for every bang. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 July 2/4: Some of the most timid girls are not frightened by a loud bang. | |
| Prison Community (1940) 330/1: bang, n. 1. A copulation. | |
| ‘Betty Boop in “Flesh”’ [comic strip] in Tijuana Bibles (1997) 30: Pounding that old roger home as if it were the last bang you’d ever get. | |
| ‘Oh, Mrs Riley’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 41: I haven’t had a bang, bang, bang in all me bloody life! | |
| letter 10 Jan. in Charters (1995) I 300: Bob had his bang. | |
| Beat Generation 59: While you get the bang of all bangs. | |
| America’s Homosexual Underground 39: We didn’t have a second bang because the kid moved out of the neighborhood. | |
| (con. 1941) Gunner 3: Innocent – hell! She’d had more bangs than Guy Fawkes night. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 43: Between bangs she’d talk, about banging in general but primarily about the preceding bang and how good it had been. | |
| West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 93: We’d be good for bang with gang upon a bird. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | (con. 1920s) Legs 92: But you’re gonna get a bang too. It’s only a deuce a jump. | |
| Indep. Rev. 2 July 4: Research which involves paying 600 homosexual males to have anal intercourse [...] gives a whole new meaning to this week’s Phrase that Pays: ‘More bangs for your buck’. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | IOL News (Western Cape) 23 Feb. 🌐 He was living ina sprawling £5 million villa named Maison de bang bang. | |
| (con. 1991-94) City of Margins 169: ‘Some of them, it’s about trying to throw a bang on one of their nun pals’. |
(c) (Aus.) a brothel.
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
(d) (also bangee) a man or woman as a sexual performer, e.g. he’s/she’s a great bang.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 122: hot bang A passionate young woman. | |
| et al. CUSS 76: Bang A sexually attractive person, female. | |
| Requiem in Utopia 137: Tell me now, is the lady spook as good a bang as she looks? | |
| Mama Black Widow 90: She did nothing to stop Sally from becoming a community bangee. | |
 | Same Old Grind 44: The five bar patrons watched the big blonde bimbo [...] ‘Hoo boy, bet she’s a fast bang!’. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 146: passive partner [...] bang (‘That streetcar conductor turned out to be a damn good bang’). | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 23: bang [...] 2. a woman considered as a ‘bangee’. |
(e) (US teen) a party, esp. when seen as a venue for sexual conquests.
| Teen Lingo: The Source for Youth Ministry 🌐 bang 1. n. Any party, but especially a party where promiscuous girls may be present. ‘Let’s check out that bang at Jo’s crib tonight.’. |
3. as a fig. ‘blow’.
(a) (US) a try, an attempt; usu. in phr. take a bang at, to have a try, to make an attempt.
| (con. WWI) ‘So This Is Flanders!’ Battle Stories July 🌐 I am out of hospital now, and almost ready for another bang at Jerry. | |
| (con. WWI) Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 17: Duffy said: ‘We’ll have a bang at the bastards to-day.’. | |
| High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 361: I’m going to take a trip down to the islands and take a bang at some of them sealskin babes. |
(b) (US Und., also banger) in fig. use, a criminal charge, i.e. something one is ‘hit’ with.
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 17: Leo Cooney. Fraud’lent perscription. It’s a bad bang. | |
| Sat. Eve. Post 24 Mar. 78: ‘What they got you locked up for?’ ‘Ah, Sergeant Dooley got me. It’s a bum bang.’ [W&F]. | |
| Choirboys (1976) 255: He was very close to bringing in a two-banger. |
4. (Aus.) alcohol [by meton., the seller bangs the glass down on the bar counter].
| Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth) 30 Sept. 3/4: We love the barmaid, love to hang / Around her flies and hear her slang, / But most of all we love her bang. |
5. (drugs, also bang in the arm) a single injection of a narcotic drug, e.g. a bang of cocaine [the force used to push the needle into one’s flesh + the instantly pleasurable sensation that the drug creates + play on shot n.1 (6b). Note the erroneous sp. bhang in cit. 1922, which is also cited in the OED and leads that dict. to assume it is a ‘revived’ version of the proper use, as a synon. for Indian cannabis (see bang n.4 )].
| Black Candle 49: It is a common expression [...] to jocularly ask another if they could give them a ‘bhang’ [sic] which is a slang expression for a snuff of cocaine. | |
| Phila. Eve. Bulletin 5 Oct. 40/3: Here are a few more terms and definitions from the ‘Racket’ vocabulary: [...] ‘bang,’ a hypodermic narcotic dose. | |
| ‘Junker Lingo’ in AS VIII:2 27: The injection of dope is referred to as a bang in the arm or a shot in the arm. | |
| ‘Saint in Silver’ in Goulart (1967) 98: Mrs. La Frage needed a bang in the arm. | |
| I, Mobster 102: I knew then he’d turned junkie and that he’d given himself a bang before he showed up. | |
| Pinktoes (1989) 57: Did Schooley and Pine sniff snow or take a bang. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Bk of Jargon 339: bang: As a noun, a shot of heroin or other narcotic. | |
| Permanent Midnight 162: I had to [...] try to squeeze out a third, potent-as-rainwater bang out of the still damp cotton. | |
| Plainclothes Naked (2002) 312: If someone had a gun to his head, and offered him the chance for world peace or a bang of heroin, he’d probably go for the heroin. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 13/1: bang n. an injection of, and resultant 'high' from, intravenous drugs:. | |
| Happy Mutant Baby Pills 14: I’d try to sit through Regis and Kelly without a bang of chiba [...] I couldn’t make it past Regis’s rouge without a second shot. |
6. excitement, stimulation [SE bang, a hit. a knock; thus a stimulus].
(a) (orig. US) a thrill, often in the context of drug use; thus get a bang (out of)
| Amer. Madam (1981) 310: I don’t know much about people who hurt other people for sex bangs. | |
| Designs in Scarlet 146: One cigarette can be utilized to produce an ordinary ‘bang’ for several persons. | |
| ‘Prince of Darkness’ in Accent (Winter) 93: Never had got the bang out of playing with the kids a priest in this country was supposed to. | |
| Plunder (2005) 243: There was more of a bang beating Blacky into line. | |
| Men of the Und. 213: Starting with a reefer, later turning to heroin for a bigger bang. | |
| Lead With Your Left (1958) 12: Fast driving gives me a bang. | |
| Flesh Peddlers (1964) 182: It’s all waterbugs now, way out. You ever drive one? No? It’s a big bang. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 13/1: bang n. an injection of, and resultant 'high' from, intravenous drugs:. |
(b) energy.
| Babbitt (1974) 148: I have tried to sketch the Real He-man, the fellow with Zip and Bang. |
7. (US) a handsome man.
| Free To Love 113: The distingué one with the white streak in his hair. Isn’t he a bang? |
8. (US drugs) an inhalant.
| Franklin Favorite (KY) 21 Nov. 17/2: Some slang terms for inhalants are glue, kick, bang, sniff, huff, poppers, whippets and Texas shoe shine. |
In compounds
(US gay) an active male homosexual.
| (ref. to late 1960s) Queens’ Vernacular 17: The man who fucks in anal intercourse, as opposed to the one who is fucked [...] bang artist (late ’60s). |
In phrases
see sense 4 above.
for fun, for a thrill.
| Teen-Age Mafia 59: She’d sell them all down the river just for bangs. |
(orig. US) to enjoy, to derive pleasure from, to get a thrill from.
| ‘Breach of Promise’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 23: Miss Amelia Bodkin gets quite a bang out of having somebody to take care of. | |
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 273: I get a bang outa talkin’ to ya. | |
| Catcher in the Rye (1958) 33: I hate the movies like poison, but I get a bang imitating them. | |
| Corner Boy 153: The crowd got a bang out of that too. | |
| letter 25 May in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 287: Some people get a bang out of reading their stuff, but I don’t, I get the reverse of a bang, a deathly silence in fact. | |
| Beat Generation 12: Some girls get a bang out of violence. They can’t enjoy it if they’re not roughed up. | |
| Gay Detective (2003) 106: I do get a bang out of watching. | |
| (con. 1940s) Man Walking On Eggshells 106: One time Raymond faked Jimmy all the way up on top of the hood of a parked car. All the guys got a bang out of that. | |
| Thief’s Primer 107: Using narcotics as pills, especially if like me you’ve never shot any dope, you get a pretty good bang out of it. You get a pretty good jolt. | |
| Gonif 57: What kind of a bang do you get out of this writing. | |
| Tales of the City (1984) 31: I don’t get a big bang out of this, you know. It doesn’t thrill me. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 21: He got a bang out of that and started to laugh. | |
| Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 184: Only Beavertail Bigelow [...] didn’t get a bang out of Oleg’s performance. | |
| (con. 1920s) Legs 87: I got a bang out of watching the two guys patroling the aisles with long bamboo poles to prod the snoring bos awake. | |
| Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘He should like that.’ ‘Oh yeah,’ smiled Norton. ‘He’ll get a bang out of this, I guarantee it’. |
(US) to thrill, to amuse, to entertain.
| letter 1 Nov. in Selected Letters (2014) 66: There was one thing though that’ll give you a bang. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
any form of firearm.
| Strawberry Soldier 138: A pistol is not a magic bang stick [HDAS]. | |
| (con. 1968) Citadel (1989) 185: Subcaliber fucking bang-sticks and a couple of measly-assed hand grenades. |
(US) an ambulance.
| Burn, Killer, Burn! 159: Maybe we’d better call the bang wagon. |
(Can.) petrol.
| Service Sl. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 48/1: since ca. 1920. |
a highly expressive word, a ‘swear-word’.
| Westminster Gazette 20 Jan. 2/1: When the recipient of a letter has to [...] go in for a comparative analysis of the different letters [...] he is justified in using bang words. |
In phrases
(Irish) one final drink after ‘time’ has been called.
| Out After Dark 8: A long-suffering publican [...] refused their pleas for ‘a bang of the latch’ – a last quick pint. |
used of something that goes well, successfully.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 7/3: This smiling stripling’s elegant intrepidity sheds new lustre on his branch of business. It surpasses all understanding and closes the show with a bang. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Jun. 14/2: The house-father told the present writer that he had given village-settlements best, after six years’ hard graft, and was making for Gisborne. Go on the land, young man! – and if you go as a village-settler, on 10 acres, you’ll come off it with a loud bang! | |
| Carry on, Jeeves 197: ‘Dear old Freddie may have been fluffy in his lines,’ I said, ‘but his business certainly seems to have gone with a bang.’. | |
| Quick Brown Fox 115: ‘You know what people want to read and you know how to write it. Went over with a bang, eh?’ . |