Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a notable lie.

1814		Hanger Sporting ‘Flyleaf’ n.p.: A sportsman entire – who says nay, tells a banger [F&H].
1877		W.S. Gilbert Engaged in London Assurance and other Victorian Comedies (2001) Act III: You are quite right, the word is bouncers. Bouncers or bangers; either will do.
1899		R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 77: They earn half-pence by well-told ‘bangers.’ They are sent out to lie to the grocer.

2. something large.

c.1800		Burns ‘The Reels o’ Bogie’ Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 154: His pintle was of largest size, / Indeed it was banger.
1933		Taunton Courier 26 Apr. 10/2: A large apple was a ‘banger’.

3. something excellent, an outstanding example, also attrib.

1827		T. Morton A School For Grown Children II i: Ear-rings for me! Gemini, how genteel! what bangers!
1864		in R.G. Carter Four Brothers in Blue (1978) 3 July 452: The hat is a banger.
1975		E. Shrake in Texas Obs. 25 July in Davis (ed) Land of the Permanent Wave 13: [W]e would find a banger of a first-person story that was supposed to grab people.
2019		A. Killilea Boyo-wulf at https://boyowulf.home.blog 5 May 🌐 And so he ruled, fightin’ the law, one against all, until that banger of a gaff stood empty.
2024		S. Kleinedler Bluesky 28 July 🌐 30 years later I realized I could have written a banger dissertation on speech act theory in the horror genre.

4. (US black) in music, an outstanding success.

2005		B. Coleman Rakim Told Me 65: ‘I used that song [‘I Ain’t No Joke’] a long time before I met Eric, so that's another Rakim banger right there’.
2012		gigwise.com Sept. 🌐 Her self-confessed ‘glorified mix-tape’ features some absolute bangers this year: from Azealia Bank’s ’212’ to Hot Chip’s ‘Night and Day’.
2016		Jeezy annotation to ‘Let Em Know’ on genius.com 🌐 Even though it might not be a club banger. Or it might not be a radio banger or none of that shit. It’s going to set a tone.
2014-20		T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Banger – hit, successful song.