Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to knock down.

1600		Munday & Drayton Sir John Oldcastle III ii: For the credit of Dunstable, ding down the money to-morrow .
1610		Jonson Alchemist V v: surly: Down with the door. kastril: ’Slight, ding it open.
1655		E. Gayton Wil Bagnals Ghost 5: And well disperst it ’mongst the crew; / For he did ding it, white and blew.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 61: Salias got up, mad as Weesel, / Dings a good dust at Nisus muzzle.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Ding c. to knock down. Ding the Cull, c. knock down the Fellow.
1709		Poor Robin n.p.: For these the neighbours do not swagger, / Nor huff, and ding, and draw the dagger [N].
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 252: And swear they’ll quickly ding the Mounsieur down.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 11: He should [...] give her a Slap-dash on the Shoulder with this other Hand, and ding her down on her Face.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1773		O. Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer Act II n.p.: If I’m to have any good, let it come of itself; not to keep dinging it, dinging it into one so [F&H].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1797		H.H. Brackenridge Modern Chivalry (1937) Pt I Vol. I IV Bk I 304: I dinna approve o’ this dinging down the government to act against the laws.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		Egan Life in London (1890) 78: Oh I took him such a lick of his mummer, and dinged his rattle clean out of his hand .
1848		Dickens Dombey and Son (1970) 179: These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
a.1872		D. Ramsey n.p.: Our meenister’s dinged the guts out of twa Bibles [F&H].
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 31 Aug. 6/2: [headline] Doherty Dinged.
1913		Van Loan ‘“Butterfly” Boggs: Pitcher’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 249: He must have dinged him wit’ a rock!
1960		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 329: When Julius Caesar came along, we dinged the son-of-a-bitch.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] .

2. to break off relations with, to abandon a person; this to cease an action.

1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 76: But making Horns and letting Fart, / Away she dings from old Sweet-heart.
1787		A. Shirrefs Jamie and Bess III i: Ned is the man I doubt, / Wha lang has wanted to ding Geordy out.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 235: To ding a person is to drop his acquaintance totally; also to quit his company, or leave him for the time present.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Feb. 3/4: ‘You’d better ding that [behaviour]. That’s Starlight, the fighting man and he'd think nothing of giving you a wipe across the jaw if you rouse hlm’.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 68: ding 1. to break up with, drop.

3. to act in an arrogant manner.

1682		A. Radcliffe ‘The Ramble’ in Poems 95: In Holland, here you huff and ding.
1707		Farquhar Beaux’ Strategem III iii: I dare not speak in the house, while that jade Gipsy dings about like a fury.
1712		J. Arbuthnot Hist. of John Bull 37: [He] says, he did us a great deal of honour to board with us; huffs and dings at such a rate.

4. to throw away, esp. to get rid of contraband when threatened by arrest; thus dinging n.

1781		G. Parker View of Society II 174: Dinging is a term for throwing away or hiding: – A highwayman will ding his Upper-Benjamin, his Jazey, his Sticks, his F1ogger, his Diggers, his Beater-Cases, &c. and having all these on him when he committed the robbery, is totally transformed by dinging.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Ding to Throw away or hide. thus a Highwayman who throws away or hides any Apparel in which he Rob’d, to prevent being known or detected, is, in the cant language, stiled a Dinger.
1786		Proc. Old Bailey 22 Feb. 396/2: Then he came, and said, I have dinged them [i.e. stolen papers] over the wall into the Deal-yard.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Ding. [...] to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to prevent being known or detected, is, in the canting lingo, styled a Dinger.
1795		Proc. Old Bailey 18 Feb. 393/2: The evidence, was in the room; when I went in I heard the word, ding it, come from the yard [...] I only knew it to be a flash word, meaning, to put it on one side.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796].
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 235: ding: to throw, or throw away; particularly any article you have stolen, either because it is worthless, or that there is danger of immediate apprehension. [...] to ding to your pall, is to convey to him, privately, the property you have just stolen; and he who receives it is said to take ding, or to knap the ding.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 312: If your name had not been chaunted in it, it would have been dinged into the dunagan.
1847		[A. Harris] (con. 1820s) Settlers & Convicts 72: I shall get out these boots and ding (throw away) mine.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 1/4: Vy I meets a bloke arter dingin the slangs.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 22/1: This was ‘slung’ to Joe, with the understanding that he was to go to the head of the ship and ‘ding the skin’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 31/1: Ding, to get rid of contraband (usually dope) when fearful of arrest.
1986		G.A. Wilkes Exploring Aus. Eng. 14: James Hardy Vaux included ding in his vocabulary of the ‘flash’ language as meaning ‘throw, or throw away’.

5. (UK Und.) to pass to a confederate.

c.1800		‘Teddy Blink and Bandy Jack’ No. 26 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: He dings it to his nearest pal.
1806		Kentish Wkly Post 12 Sept. 2: [A] constable searched her, but did not find the property [i.e. a stolen wallet] , which it was very clear she ha dinged to her pals (given to an accomplice).
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 131: †Ding’d away the wipe — Passed away the handkerchief to another, to escape detection.
1833		‘Jerry Abershaw’s Will’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 16: This belcher ding to Dolly, for to flash upon her breast / To remind her vhen she lifts it to her nose O!
1834		‘For I Will Prig For Ever’ in Flare-Up Songster 19: Again He’ll cut a dash, / At play, or prize ring act the swell, / And ease some spooney’s slash [...] Whilst Sally’s eye / Winks soft and sly, / He dings to her the cash.

6. to steal by snatching, e.g. a hat.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 67: Ding — to steal by a single effort. ‘To ding a castor;’ to snatch off a hat and run with it.

7. to kill, to shoot, to be shot dead; in weak use, to be wounded; thus dinged adj.

1915		L.D. Richards diary 2 May 🌐 The Allemandes know when we are relieved, and just let ding over the parapets, and drop them behind.
1977		(con. 1965-66) P. Caputo Rumor of War 250: ‘Don’t you know it, asshole. It’s your mother.’ ‘Then I’m your son, and if you get dinged, I’ll be an orphan’.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 21: I [...] drove standin’ up one-handed, dingin’ gooks with my forty-five.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 66: Gibson Hand went to work surveillance and drew a hot assignment and got to ding some people his first week. [Ibid.] 182: It’s one thing to be dinged in war. It’s one thing to buy it on the freeway. [...] What I mean is, it’s a rotten mean lowlife thing to be murdered. [...] In Nam I never wanted to ding someone personally.
1987		(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 61: I got one man badly dinged.
2002		(con. 1967) J. Laurence Cat from Hué 442: Of all the words American troops used to describe death in Vietnam — aced, blown away, bought it, croaked, dinged, fucked up, [...] wiped out, zapped — the one I heard most was ‘wasted.’.

8. (US campus) to turn (someone) down, to blackball; also attrib.

1932		J.A. Shidler ‘More Stanford Expressions’ in AS VII:6 437: To ‘ding’ a man is to say that you will vote against that person.
1949–51		in M. Daly Profile of Youth 110: The fraternity brothers decide which five to take as pledges and which five to ‘ding out.’ A ‘ding’ is a statement by one fraternity member that he doesn’t want a particular boy in the fraternity.
1967		Banchero & Flinn ‘Sociology and College Sl.’ in AS XLII:1 57: To ding (to bung at some other colleges) ‘to blackball a rushee’.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 68: ding [...] 2. to refuse membership or drop from membership.
1995		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 3: ding – reject: ‘That ad firm dinged me’ [...] ‘I got a ding letter from that ad firm’.

9. to dent, to scratch; thus dinged, dinged-up, scratched, dented.

1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 235: That there radiator ain’t half dinged.
1974		(con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 380: Some of the rounds had dinged his ship.
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 240: The dispatch room was a bullet-wasted ruin [...] the plastic desk dinged and cracked from ricochets.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 75: The coffee table that’s all dinged and scarred up.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 282: Dig that dinged-up Dodge Dart.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 25: [B]roken shillelaghs, nutcrackers with busted hinges, dinged Zippo lighters.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 165: This was like the Titanic suddenly floating to the surface [...] dinged-up and rusty.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The Last Ride’ in Broken 295: [T]he Border Patrol [...] was always looking for female agents, even if they were a little dinged.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 243: Now there was a car with a dinged bumper parked in front.

10. to stub out.

1939

B. Appel Power-House 240: Bill dinged out his cigarette in the red metal ash-tray.

11. (US campus) to reject a request for a date.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS.

12. in fig. use of sense 1, to astonish, to amaze.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 62: ding one to be astonished.

13. to smash into.

1985		S.M. Charnas Bronze King 1: Something hard and small dinged me on the forehead, just over my left eye.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 14: I heard the swoosh of an RPG rocket, a dud round that dinged the lieutenant’s left shoulder before it flew off into the bush behind him. It took off his whole arm.

14. (US und.) to kidnap, to abduct.

2010

L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Moby put the word out and the Armenians dinged you.