smash v.1
1. (UK Und.) to kick downstairs.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Smash c. to kick down Stairs. The Chubbs, toute the Blosses, they Smash, and make them brush, c. the Sharpers catch their Mistresses at the Tavern, making merry without them, Kick them down Stairs, and force them to rub off. | |
| Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) II [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
2. to render bankrupt.
| The Quaker’s Opera I i: The Dog has smash’d me damnably. | |
| Western Times 7 Aug. 8/1: But that same scamp I’ll smash, He’ll pay two thousand pounds. |
3. (also smash up) to fail financially, to be ruined, to become bankrupt; thus smashing n., bankruptcy.
| Way to Get Married in Inchbold (1808) XXV 11: I give him my note for double the sum [I owe], he discounts it—I touch half in the ready—note comes due—double the sum again—touch half again, and so on to the tune of fifty thousand pounds. If monopolies answer, make all straight—if not, smash—into the Gazette. [Ibid.] 70: Zounds! to be bankrupt [...] Oh, my smashing will fly about like wildfire. | |
 | in Times 14 Apr. 3: My tradesmen are smashing by dozens, / But this is nothing, they say; / For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Clockmaker I 201: It’s the consarn that’s smashed. | |
| ‘Bobbing around!’ in Fred Shaw’s Champion Comic Melodist 21: Oh, banks will burst, and brokers smash. | |
| Sheffield Indep. 23 Dec. 15/2: In a bank is it you would tell me to put it? No, no, banks smashes, banks do. | |
| Golden Butterfly II 233: ‘With its present income, cannot hope to pay its dividends –’ ‘Must smash up, in short.’. | |
| Fast and Loose III 186: The bank may smash. | |
| Punch 7 Mar. 175/2: Bank smashed with all my money. Left absolutely penniless. | |
| Maison De Shine 182: In these here times, with banks smashin’, an’ all that. | |
| in Indianapolis Star 11 Sept. 7/5: When I hear there’s been a panic in the market / And securities are hurrying to smash. |
4. to beat; also in fig. use, e.g. overwhelm emotionally.
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 218: I’m smashed if I don’t bet that I can put blankets and leggins on the whole tribe, and pass them through the Cherokee nation for friendly Black-feet. | |
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 26 Nov. n.p.: the whip wants to know If Harry B—l did actually ‘smash’ the beautiful Miss C [...] Oh, Harry, Harry, you should’nt have out it in so thick. | |
| ‘Masonic Secret’ Works (1862) VII 20: Gag him! Thrash him! Smash him! | |
| Ticket-of-Leave Man 11: Make a row, and I’ll smash you! | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 12 Oct. n.p.: [headline] A Rich Scene in Court — An Indignant Wife ‘Smashes’ Her Husband [...] Mrs Smith sprang toward him, and dealt him a terrible blow in the eye. | |
| Royal Cornwall Gaz. 31 May 7/4: Hook it, master [...] You’re blown, and if there’s a row, you’ll get smashed. | |
| Deacon Brodie II tab.IV viii: Don’t you get coming the nob over me, Mr. Deacon Brodie, or I’ll smash you [...] Ay will I. If I thundering well swing for it. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Workingman’s Paradise 148: They fancy that if they can only smash our fellows they’ll have unionism smashed all over Australia. | |
| ‘Out for the Day and In for the Night’ Sporting Times 9 June 1/4: She was rigged up regardless of cost, as if cash / Was no object, when used in such sort / As to yield a result calculated to smash / All the donahs who lived up her court. | |
| Truth (Perth) 25 June 8/8: He’d been smashed for safe and certain / For that bloke were after loot. | |
| (con. WW1) Patrol 44: ‘Fatty got up and came at me again. I wasn’t free to smash him [...] and he got me a couple’. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | N.Z. Truth 1 Aug. 18/1: [advt] ‘Aspro’ [...] will smash up a Cold or ’Flu attack in 24 hours. | |
| Courier Mail (Brisbane) 9 Aug. 7/6: [headline] Cows Smash Fat Records. | |
| Dimboola (2000) 79: april: Job him, Darcy. florence: Smash him, Angus! | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Baby Mother and King of Swords 83: All his friends ‘smashed’ him as they passed by. | |
| Rakim Told Me 226: ‘I jumped on-stage and smashed all five of these MCs. [...] I battled and smashed them’. | |
| me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 You wanna get smashed, cunt? | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: smash v. To beat up, assault. |
5. (Aus.) to spend recklessly.
| Hawkesbury Chron. (Windsor, NSW) 15 Sept. 4/1: A youth who seemed to little reck, / So long as he could smash his cheque / for alcohol. | |
| Sporting Times 16 Aug. 7/2: For her husband drew her cheque, which he did smash, / Ev’ry pay-night on strong liquor. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 16/2: And when the subject of cheque melting is mentioned: ‘Pooh,’ he says, ‘blewed sixty quid, did he? Look at me – I smashed nine hundred!’. | |
| ‘The Swagman’ in Old Bush Songs 96: But if there’s any covey here / What’s got a cheque, d’ye see, / I’ll stop and help him smash it. |
6. (US campus) to fail in recitation.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 60: smash, v. To fail in recitation. |
7. (US) to dismiss from a job.
| ‘The Scorched Face’ Story Omnibus (1966) 80: If you get me smashed for searching a house without authority, you’ll have to give me a job. |
8. to be a smash hit.
| Awopbop. (1970) 131: They released their first movie, Hard Day’s Night, and it smashed. |
9. (US) to have casual sexual intercourse.
| On the Bro’d 13: I’d [...] meet some awesome dudes along the way and smash with mad hotties. | |
| What They Was 139: One peng Somali ting I drew at the bus stop. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter 38: We were all born to play, to doss, to smash, to rev, to love, to enjoy ourselves. |
In compounds
(UK Und.) a housebreaker.
| Modern Flash Dict. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open. |
In phrases
1. (US campus) to do well in an examination.
| et al. CUSS. |
2. to have sexual intercourse.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | IOL News (Western Cape) 31 Jan. 🌐 Footage was released of Keys asking her ex-boyfriend if he had ‘smashed it’ — slang for slept with her. |
3. to be successful, to perform well.
| Esquire 1 Sept. 🌐 What is your definition of success? Once you hit £40k OTE and a company Avensis, you’re absolutely smashing it fella. |
1. (US) to leave abruptly.
| Cinderella Liberty 140: If you had any sense of survival you’d smash out of here. |
2. as vtr. to have sex.
| Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 9: I used to smash his sister out [...] My thoughts, ‘Besides, you sister’s head game was trash’. |
1. (UK prison) of a prisoner, to forfeit the privilege – gained for good behaviour – of substituting tea for the usual gruel.
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 86: When a man loses his class [...] he loses the privilege of having tea, and returns to gruel. This, among prisoners, is termed ‘smashing the teapot’. |
2. to abandon one’s pledge of abstinence (taken earlier at the urging of the Salvation Army or a similar teetotalist body).
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
In exclamations
(US) an excl. of surprise, disbelief.
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 220: Smash me, if they don’t think the whole cream of the ball lies in rattlin the bones of their elbows. | |
| Gay Girls of N.Y. 65: That husband of yours, my dear Emeline, is a brute to grumble at such an angel – smash me! |
a general excl., synon. with blast my eyes!
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 23: You don’t chaw tobacco, and you don’t drink nothin; smash my apple-cart if I can see into it. | |
| ‘The Faking Boy to the Crap is Gone’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 124: ‘Smash my glim,’ cries the reg’lar card. |
(US) an excl. of surprise and delight.
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 102: But the men! O smashy! how they rode! |