smack, adv. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

smack adv.

also smacko

1. directly.

1800		M. Edgeworth Castle Rackrent (1832) 43: Every thing went on smack smooth.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 18: Like cronies they hugg’d, and came smack to the ground.
1825		‘Dumble Dum Deary’ in C. Lovat Fraser Chap Book (1920) Sept. 18: I fell where I never did fall before; / In love it was, smack up to the chin.
1836		‘The Patent S--t-Pot’ in Cockchafer 30: He fell smack in love with a beautiful maid.
1840		Flash Mirror 24: [She] shied it smack at my nob, but it missed me and vent plump in my old ’ooman’s blinker.
1846		Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 982: I’ve been sweatin’ over thar, about ten hours; a hull day lost smack; and not a red cent made yet.
1850		J.C. Neal Pic-nic Sketches 206: They want you to know right smack.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 36/1: So, to put the crab on my gentleman, I boldly stepped our from my corner, and putting on a look, started him smack in the face.
1887		Pulaski Citizen (TN) 10 Nov. 2/2: Perhaps the colonel intended that his penciled javelin should [...] run smack in the Tennessee printing offices.
1894		S. Crane in Arena Oct. in Stallman (1966) 94: They can’t open th’ doors! Th’ fellers er smack up ag’in ’em.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:4 172: I bet he’s got a deep move on, or he wouldn’t make out to be coming smack for us like that.
1928		Hecht & MacArthur Front Page Act III: We run smack into a police patrol.
1941		Kerouac letter in Charters I (1995) 13: We look smack at the sea, and on a clear day you can see Long Island.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 218: I nearly went smacko on the line.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 218: The red light stockade on Post Office Street is smack downtown.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 121: A house like our own, only it was a lot nearer the bike factory, smack next to it in fact.
1977		(con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 74: This Zip jumps up smack into me, lays his AK-47 fucking right into me.
1983		S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Plays (1984) 82: Lured me with your flashing eyes and your little boy’s knees, that’s what you’ve done. And I’ve fell right smack in.
1993		J. Mowry Six Out Seven (1994) 93: It don’t do nuthin for my appetite when it be starin me right smack in the face like that.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 207: Here’s Hamlin Street, smack in the middle of the Brookland neighbourhood.
2009		N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] His office was in Johnstown, smack middle in a strip mall.

2. immediately.

1830

Lytton Paul Clifford I 69: I tells you what, Paul, you’ll please to break with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you’ll ever get from Peg Lobkins.

3. see smack-dab

In compounds

smack-bang (adv.)

see slap-bang adv.

smack-dab (adv.) (also smack) [echoic]

(US) exactly, precisely, entirely.

1839		Yorks. Gaz. 12 Dec. n.p.: He tipp’d off the cratur [...] and ordered his cab / To do his precursoring ramble, smack dab.
1892		DN I 232: He hit him smack dab in the mouth.
1902		W.N. Harben Abner Daniel 14: It’ll be started inside of the next yeer an’ ’ll run smack dab through my property.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 590: smack-dab, adv. Squarely.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 42: Lola Sapola suddenly drives her right fist smack-dab into Dave the Dude’s stomach.
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 115: She was walking right smack into Teddy Ast’s waiting arms.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 43: Greta, who kissed me smack-dab on the lips.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 206: Now the same music parked me right smack on another corner, this time in the heart of Harlem.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 269: Looks like you walked smack-dab into it again.
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 65: If that stupid bastard has to be treated like a mad dog, he has come smack dab against the right man.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 167: He had all he could do to keep from turnin’ his ole red truck right smack dab into them.
1985		(con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 132: What if we’re smackfuckindab in the middle of their staging area or something?
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 1: King’s Cross [...] Right smack-dab in the middle of it in Victoria Street.
1998		(con. 1960s) G. Washington Blood Brothers 107: We rode smack dab into the middle of an ambush and got an ass-kicking.
2007		L.J. Kotlikoff Healthcare Fix 3: Today’s fifty-year-olds were born in 1957, smack dab in the middle of the baby boom. In 2035, they’ll be smack dab in the middle of their retirements.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 72: A rusty single-wide smack dab in the middle.

smack on

see separate entry.

smack-smooth (adj.)

absolutely level, perfectly smooth.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		S. Smith Life J. Downing (1834) 28: [He] rolled them up in piles and sot fire to ’em again and burnt ’em up smack smooth.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 409: Smack smooth, at the West, a term applied to land which is thoroughly cleared: i.e. smoothly cleared; level.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.

In phrases

go smacko (v.)

(US) of financial markets, to suffer a sudden collapse.

1935

J. O’Hara Butterfield 8 77: A few common stocks [...] have taken a thumping, but that’s because some of them were undoubtedly priced at more than they were worth. All right. Something happens and the whole market goes smacko.