Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. energetically, vigorously, directly; thus as n., energy, vigour; also as adj., excl.

1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 23: This said, his broomstick with a twang / He dash’d upon the ground slap bang.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 32: This said, his truncheon, gilded all [...] Slap bang upon the floor he threw.
1825		‘Shadrack, The Orangeman’ Universal Songster I 27: Dere dey go slap bang up a blind alley to look at de gold Napoleon.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 181: We let them have it slap bang.
1840		Comic Almanack Mar. 219: All of a sudden, helter skelter, skurry, hurry, slap bang, hooping, screeching, and hurraing, blue coats and [...] dustmen and blackguard boys, go tearing, all together, over the common.
1853		Morn. Post 21 Oct. 3/4: All was silent [...] when suddenly, slap-bang closed the shutter from within.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 95: SLAP BANG, suddenly, violently.
1862		Golden Age (Queenbeyan, NSW) 31 July 2/6: A host of others, including Natives, Old Hands, New Chums, runaway sailors, broken down swells, saints, and termagants, who [...] have gained for its inhabitants the somewhat undignified title of ‘The Slap-Bang Mob’.
1866		J. Greenwood Night in a Workhouse 42: A shout of ‘Slap bang, here we are again!’.
1873		J. Greenwood In Strange Company 77: Music-hall tunes, I mean. They’re werry lively; but there’s a sort of ‘slap-bang’ about ’em all that don’t agree with everybody. It isn’t so respectable as the old tunes.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 119: ‘I rode [...] slap bang at their front’.
1886		Stephens & Yardley in Little Jack Sheppard 44: 🎵 I’d soar on my pinions so high / Slap bang to the arms of my Polly love.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 75: Slap-bangs, a term denoting something happening suddenly.
1898		Eve. Teleg. (Angus, Scot.) 28 Apr. 2/4: A passenger steamer which went slap-bang on the rocks [...] on a gusty March morning.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Dec. 46/3: ‘Win or lose, it’s the Devils’ game.’ I said, ‘I’ll stick to religion, an’ I came ’ere quick. I wanted to change, slap-bang.’.
1924		Lawrence & Skinner Boy in Bush 91: Roundin’ up on imaginary things, makin’ out t’hit ’em slap-bang-whizz on the mitts they ain’t got.
1929		Basil Bunting Complete Poems ‘First Book of Odes: 9’: Only a savage’s / lusts explode slapbang at the first touch like bombs.
1940		F. Sargeson ‘Big Ben’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 125: He’d got hit slap-bang by the slump.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 227: I was flat out along George Street just after ten o’clock when I ran slap bang into Old Mother Warden.
1969		A. Buckeridge Trust Jennings (1989) 18: And run slap-bang-wallop into a master outside the village stores!
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 39: I jump off the bus and I walk smack-bang into four of ’em.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 47: The Dubbos ran slap bang into what happens to be a traffic phenomenon unique to The Cross.
1990		R.G. Barratt ‘Sleaze Stays When the Party’s Over’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] I turned into the main drag smack-bang into the crowds.
1997		S. Armitage ‘Horologium’ in CloudCuckooLand 82: Slap bang on the equator.
1999		Indep. Rev. 8 Oct. 10: The play opens with Barabas in his counting house slap-bang in the middle of a sustained bout of stereo-typical Jewish behaviour.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 165: I am smack bang out of it for [...] a couple of minutes.
2000		Indep. Rev. 30 Mar. 12: A large wooden coffin plonked slap-bang in the middle of the stage.

2. first-rate.

1943

Western Dly Press 30 Sept. 2/4: One of the wisest grain merchants in Somerset showed a man a slap-bang sample of Black Supreme oats.

3. implying closeness.

1898

John Fox Jr ‘Courtin’ on Cutshin’ (in Hell Fer Sartain and Other Stories ) n.p.: Jeb begun a-movin’ ag’in till he was slam-bang agin Polly Ann’s cheer.

4. see slap-dab adv.