Green’s Dictionary of Slang

smack adv.

also smacko
[echoic/smack v. (3)]

1. directly.

[UK]M. Edgeworth Castle Rackrent (1832) 43: Every thing went on smack smooth.
[UK]‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 18: Like cronies they hugg’d, and came smack to the ground.
[UK] ‘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.
[UK] ‘The Patent S--t-Pot’ in Cockchafer 30: He fell smack in love with a beautiful maid.
[UK]Flash Mirror 24: [She] shied it smack at my nob, but it missed me and vent plump in my old ’ooman’s blinker.
[US]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.
[US]J.C. Neal Pic-nic Sketches 206: They want you to know right smack.
[UK]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.
[US]Pulaski Citizen (TN) 10 Nov. 2/2: Perhaps the colonel intended that his penciled javelin should [...] run smack in the Tennessee printing offices.
[US]S. Crane in Arena Oct. in Stallman (1966) 94: They can’t open th’ doors! Th’ fellers er smack up ag’in ’em.
[UK]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.
[US]Hecht & MacArthur Front Page Act III: We run smack into a police patrol.
[US]Kerouac letter in Charters I (1995) 13: We look smack at the sea, and on a clear day you can see Long Island.
[UK]G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 218: I nearly went smacko on the line.
[US]Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 218: The red light stockade on Post Office Street is smack downtown.
[UK]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.
[US](con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 74: This Zip jumps up smack into me, lays his AK-47 fucking right into me.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[US]G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 207: Here’s Hamlin Street, smack in the middle of the Brookland neighbourhood.
[US] N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] His office was in Johnstown, smack middle in a strip mall.

2. immediately.

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

(US) exactly, precisely, entirely.

[UK]Yorks. Gaz. 12 Dec. n.p.: He tipp’d off the cratur [...] and ordered his cab / To do his precursoring ramble, smack dab.
[US] DN I 232: He hit him smack dab in the mouth.
[US]W.N. Harben Abner Daniel 14: It’ll be started inside of the next yeer an’ ’ll run smack dab through my property.
[US]R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 590: smack-dab, adv. Squarely.
[US]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.
[US]J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 115: She was walking right smack into Teddy Ast’s waiting arms.
[Aus]L. Glassop We Were the Rats 43: Greta, who kissed me smack-dab on the lips.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 206: Now the same music parked me right smack on another corner, this time in the heart of Harlem.
[US]N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 269: Looks like you walked smack-dab into it again.
[US](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.
[US]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.
[US](con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 132: What if we’re smackfuckindab in the middle of their staging area or something?
[Aus](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.
[US](con. 1960s) G. Washington Blood Brothers 107: We rode smack dab into the middle of an ambush and got an ass-kicking.
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.
[US]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.

[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
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.
[US]Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 409: Smack smooth, at the West, a term applied to land which is thoroughly cleared: i.e. smoothly cleared; level.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK]Sl. Dict.