Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the penis [rod n. (1)].

1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 8: He fill’d up the trench with a faggot of length, / And ramm’d in his charge with a ramrod of strength.
1788		Burns ‘The Plenipotentiary’ Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 203: The Nymphs of the Stage did his ramrod engage.
c.1790		‘The Manual Exercise’ Irish Ballads 2: She cried well performed my young Volunteer [...] Return you ram rod pray make no delay.
1836		song title in Gentleman’s Private Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 380: The Ramrod and the Balls, or, Military Tactics.
1841		‘Toasts & Sentiments’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 48: Soldier’s demand a good piece, stiff ram-rod, and a clean touch hole.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 4 Feb. 1/1: The Commissariat Wood-be swell known by the ladies as Ramrod will be noticed in our next.
1863		in T.P. Lowry Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 160: The Prince of Love, of which I spoke yesterday, alluding to the ‘ramrod and ballocks,’ even now larger, stiff and rising.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 27: Baguette, f. The penis; ‘the ramrod’.
1904		Lustful Memoirs of a Young and Passionated Girl 25: She looked at his ram rod and seemed surprised to see its head dropping.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 140: You know it’s [i.e. the vagina] there and all you think abut is getting your ramrod inside.
1940		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 42: I layed her in the green grass to see if I could, / I pulled out my ramrod, my balls they played fair.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 131: I straddled her shoulders with my thighs, forced her head back with my hands, holding onto her ears and rammed my ramrod right down her wide-open, red-lipped mouth.
1981		S. King Cujo (1982) 111: Lost most of the old sperm factory over there in France [...] Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t. Might be fun to find out if I still got any ram left in my ramrod.
1994		C. Bukowski Pulp (2000) 134: We can talk afterwards... I got this ramrod here and I got to do something with it. I need flesh, not words!
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 229: [He] appears in the homosexual films ‘Ramrod Man,’ ‘Ramrod Boy,’ ‘Ramrod King,’ ‘Ramrod Stud,’ ‘Naughty Ramrod,’ & ‘Ramrod Rams It Home’.
2014		http://theresmoretolifethanheavenandearth.wordpress.com 12 May 🌐 peter from Watford who was in Braintree back in 1984, that he kept reafuring it as a knob and keith called his a ram rod.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘[S]he’s got a ramrod in herr mouth, and mine’s dead as Dillinger’.

2. (also rod) a manager or leader, usu. a tough person or harsh disciplinarian.

1827		R.B. Peake Comfortable Lodgings I i: Do you hear that, you old ramrod?
1881		‘Bill Nye’ Bill Nye and Boomerang 60: John Humpfner, the ram-rod of the New York House, feared that the explosion might break the large French plate glass windows of his palatial hotel.
1902		Out West June 624: The Rod he raised me to 30 dollars a month while the fall work was going on [DA].
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 92: ramrod, n. Mainstay, manager, superintendent. ‘He’s the ramrod of the concern.’.
1924		(con. 1850s) J.M. Franks Seventy Years in Texas 73: The boss of the outfit was called the ‘ramrod’ or ‘rod’.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 65: I perceived a ramrod in a cloth cap on the watch at the corner.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 26: When Red goes, I’ll need a ramrod, and I’m offering you the job.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 277: There’s five fellers on the school board, but old man Burns is the ramrod.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 98: Those girls who came to work in Dublin were one of the main sources of sexual pleasure to the ramrods of Rathmines and Rathgar.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 418: We simply do not HAVE the ramrods [...] who could knock us out of bed or keep us going in the dark pit of hell of the factories and the streets.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 229: Civil rights goups asked for new hearings under ex-Knapp ramrod Roy Goodman.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 226: The Warden brought in a new ramrod for S&I.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 645: Bob Relyea worked the gig. Dwight Holly played ramrod. Wayne Senior ran ops.

3. a landlord.

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 125/1: Clown hollows, ‘Now ramrod!’ meaning landlord.
1905		Sporting Times 1 Apr. 3/2: It was part of the rent bundle, but the ramrod’ll have to wait.

4. (N.Z. prison) male-to-male sexual assault.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 151/2: ramrodn. a male-male rape.