(also occasionally ke-, ca-, ka-). U.S. vulgar. The first element in numerous onomatopœic or echoic formations intended to imitate the sound or the effect of the fall of some heavy body, as kerchunk, -flop, -plunk, -slam, -slap, -slash, -souse, -swash, -swosh, -thump, -whop, etc.
1843. Major Jones’s Courtship, i. (Farmer). Kerslash! I went rite over Miss Stallinses spinnin’ wheel onto the floor. Ibid. (Bartlett). Kerslosh he went into a tub of water.
1850. Americans at Home, I. (ibid.). The dugout hadn’t leaped more’n six lengths from the bank, afore … ke-souse I went.
1875. My Opin. & Betsey Bobbet’s, 99. I fell kerslap over a rail that lay in the grass.
1885. J. Runciman, Skippers & Shellbacks, 85. They hoists him over and lets him go ker-whop.
1897. Outing (U.S.), XXX. 127/2. Across the lower end of the swamp … back we go kerslosh-kersplash for another quarter of a mile.
1899. F. T. Bullen, Way Navy, 52. Down came the bunch of sacks kerslam on the deck below.
