subs. (old colloquial: now recognised in some senses).—Generic for energy and dash: a blow, thump, sudden noise, GO (q.v.). As verb = to drub (B. E. and GROSE), strike, explode, or shut with violence. Hence TO BANG IT OUT (or ABOUT) = to come to blows (or fisticuffs), to fight it out; TO BANG (= slam) A DOOR; TO BANG (= fire) A GUN; TO BANG (= play loudly) A PIANO; TO BANG INTO ONE’S HEAD = to convince by force; TO BANG AGAINST = to bump (or thump); TO BANG AWAY AT = to make a violent and continuous noise; TO BANG OUT = to go with a flourish; TO BANG UP = to throw oneself upon suddenly, to spring up; BANG (or BANG OFF) = at once, abruptly: e.g., BANG went saxpence; IN A BANG, in a hurry; BANG OUT, completely; BANGING = violent, noisy, and as subs. = a drubbing: see WIPE (see also sense 2).
c. 1550. Robin Hood (RITSON), vi. 79.
| That all the wood rang at every BANG. | |
| Ibid., ix. 95. | |
| Either yield to me the daie, | |
| Or I will BANG thy back and sides. | |
| Ibid. (c. 1600), xvii. 85. | |
| With a but of sack we will BANG IT ‘ABOUT,’ | |
| To see who wins the day. |
c. 1550. T. INGLELEND, The Disobedient Child [DODSLEY, Old Plays (HAZLITT), ii. 282]. Maid. What BANGING, what cursing, Long-tongue, is with thee!
1582. STANYHURST, Æneis [ARBER], 68. Thow must with surges bee BANGED.
1588. Marprelate’s Epistle, 4 (ARBER). His grace … was loth to have any other so BANGED as he himselfe was to his woe.
1592. JOHN DAY, The Blind Beggar of Bednal Green, ii. 2. I’ll have it again, or I’ll BANG IT OUT of the coxcombs of some of them.
1593. NASHE, Four Letters Confuted, 37. A bigge fat lusty wench it is,… will BANG thee abhominationly if euer she catch thee. Ibid. (1595), Saffron Walden, x. ij. b. The BANGINEST things … which I can pick out … are these.
1601. SHAKESPEARE, Julius Cæsar, iii. 3. 20.
| You’l bear me a BANG for that I feare. | |
| Ibid. (1602), Twelfth Night, iii. 2. | |
| Have BANGED the youth. | |
| Ibid. (1604), Othello, ii. 1. 21. | |
| The desperate tempest hath SO BANG’D the Turks, | |
| That their designment halts. |
1616. B. HOLYDAY, trans. Juvenal, x. 185.
| Then th’ Axe their Chariot-wheels with BANGING stroak | |
| Splits out, and their poor horses Legs are broke. |
1644. GEORGE RADCLIFFE [CARTE, A Collection of Letters (1735), 329], 18 July. After a shrewd BANG, Prince Rupert is recruiting gallantly.
1663. BUTLER, Hudibras, I. ii. 831.
| With many a stiff thwack, many a BANG, | |
| Hard crab-tree, and old iron rang. |
1675. COTTON, Burlesque upon Burlesque: or, The Scoffer Scofft, 44. With my Battoon I’le BANG his sconce.
1709. STEELE, The Tatler, No. 70, 20 Sept. So neither is BANGING a Cushion Oratory.
1719. CAREY, Sally in our Alley, st. 3.
| My master comes like any Turk, | |
| And BANGS me most severely. |
1768. A. ROSS, Helenore, 143. [JAMIESON]. Then I’ll BANG out my beggar dish.
1784. COWPER, Letter to W. Unwin, in Works (1876), 183. You are a clergyman, and I have BANGED your order.
c. 1787. BECKFORD, Italy, II. 136. A most complicated sonata, BANGED OFF on the chimes.
1794. BURNS, Works, 133.
| Oh aye my wife she dang me, | |
| An’ aft my wife did BANG’D me! |
1795. MACNEILL, Will and Jean, i. BANG! cam in Mat Smith and’s brither.
1813. Examiner, 18 Jan., 43. 1. The mob … called out, ‘BANG UP lads, in with you.’
1814. SCOTT, Waverley, III. 238. Twa unlucky red-coats … BANGED OFF a gun at him. Ibid. (1816), Old Mortality, 80. It’s not easy to BANG the soldier with his bandoleers.
1816. AUSTEN, Emma, I. i. 5. She always turns the lock of the door the right way and never BANGS it.
1840. R. H. DANA, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, xxxvi. The watch on deck were BANGING away at the guns every few minutes.
1855. BROWNING, Up at a Villa—Down in the City, ix. BANG-whang-whang goes the drum.
1870. KAYE, History of the Sepoy War in India, II. vi. 4. 554. An unwonted amount of confidence and BANG.
1877. Daily News, 1 Nov., 6. 1. This is now being BANGED into the heads that have planned … this campaign.
1884. The Cornhill Magazine, April, 442. ‘Davis,’ said Toddy, ‘you haven’t had a BANGING this term, and you’re getting cocky.’
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 28. Having saved up enough siller to encourage him in BANGING just A SAXPENCE or twa.
2. (orig. American).—A fringe of hair (usually curled or frizzled) cut squarely across the forehead. As verb. to cut (or wear) the hair in this fashion. Also BANG-TAIL, BANG-TAILED, BANG-TAIL MUSTER (of horses): see quot. 1887.
1887. TYRWHITT, New Chum in Queensland Bush, 62. Every third or fourth year on a cattle station, they have what is called a BANG TAIL MUSTER; that is to say, all the cattle are brought into the yards, and have the long hairs at the end of the tail cut off square, with knives or sheep-shears…. The object of it is … to find out the actual number of cattle on the run, to compare with the number entered on the station books.
1861. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, vi. ‘These BANG-TAILED little sinners any good?’ said Drysdale, throwing some cock-a-bondies across the table.
1870. Daily News, 19 July, 6. A good mare with a BANG-TAIL.
1880. W. D. HOWELLS, The Undiscovered Country, viii. When one lifted his hat … he showed his hair cut in front like a young lady’s BANG.
1880. Evening Standard, 3 April, 4. 4. The present style of BANGED girl.
1882. F. H. CUSHING, My Adventures in Zuñi, in The Century Magazine, xxv. 192. He was bare-headed, his hair BANGED even with his eyebrows in front.
1883. Pall Mall Gazette, 19 Dec., 4. 1. It was no doubt unfortunate that when the Empress Eugenie cut her hair across her forehead from sorrow of heart, the women of five continents should imitate her until the BANG became universal.
1883. W. H. BISHOP, Old Mexico and Her Lost Provinces, xxx. They wear their thick, coal-black hair ‘BANGED’ low on their foreheads.
1888. Detroit Free Press.
| BANG, Sister, BANG with care; | |
| If your poker’s too hot you’ll lose your hair. |
Verb. (common).—1. To excel, surpass, beat: cf. (Irish) that BANGS Bannagher and Bannagher BANGS the world. Hence (2) to outwit, puzzle, deceive. Also BANGING = great, large, THUMPING (q.v.): e.g., a BANGING boy, wench, lie etc.; BANGER = anything exceptional; BANG-UP = fine, first-rate, of the best (the root idea is completeness combined with energy and dash): see subs., sense 1 and quot. 1785. occasionally (as verb.) = to smarten up.
1731. FIELDING, The Lottery, 2.
| Ah, think, my Lord! how I shou’d grieve | |
| To see your Lordship BANG’D. |
1823. GROSE, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [EGAN], s.v. BANG UP. (Whip.) Quite the thing. Well done. Complete. Dashing. In a handsome stile. A BANG UP COVE; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. TO BANG UP PRIME: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style: as the swell’s rattler and prads are BANG UP prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage and fine horses. A man, who has behaved with extraordinary spirit and resolution in any enterprise he has been engaged in, is also said to have come BANG UP to the mark; any article which is remarkably good or elegant, or any fashion, act, or measure which is carried to the highest pitch, is likewise illustrated by the same emphatical phrase.
1808. Cumberland Ballads, iv. 13, ‘The Worton Wedding.’
| Then cocker Wully lap bawk heet, | |
| An in his clogs top teyme did beat; | |
| But Tamer, in her stockin feet, | |
| Suin BANG’D him out an out. |
1812. H. and J. SMITH, Rejected Addresses (1833), 163. Dance a BANG-UP theatrical cotillion.
1814. HANGER, Sporting ‘Flyleaf.’ A sportsman entire—who says nay, tells a BANGER.
1821. COMBE, Dr. Syntax, iii. 5.
| Thus BANG’D UP sweeten’d and clean-shav’d, | |
| The Sage the dinner-table brav’d. |
1837. DICKENS, Life, II. i. 34. The next Pickwick will BANG all the others.
1842. LEVER, Jack Hinton, vii. His hat set jauntily … his spotted neckcloth knotted in BANG-UP mode.
1844. WHATELEY [The Quarterly Review, XXIV. 368]. We could not resist giving a specimen of John Thorpe … altogether the best portrait of … the BANG-UP Oxonian.
1846. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, I, xxxiv. In a tax cart, drawn by a BANG-UP pony … his friends, the Sutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, II. 47. It was good stuff and good make at first, and hasn’t been abused, and that’s the reason why it always BANGS a slop, because it was good to begin with.
1864. DENISON [Daily Telegraph, 31 Aug.]. They could win it with a great BANGING majority.
1882. Punch, LXXXII. 22 April, 185. 1. ‘These then are the dandies, the fops, the goes and the BANG-UPS, these the CORINTHIANS of to-day.’… These fellows are very ‘good form,’ and as to being BANG-UP, a good many poor old Chappies are deuced hard-up.
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, viii. They earn halfpence by well-told ‘BANGERS.’ They are sent out to lie to the grocer.
3. (stock exchange).—To offer stock loudly with the intention of lowering the price.
1884. MARTEN and CHRISTOPHERSON, Monthly Circ., 31 March. Speculators for the fall are as usual taking the opportunity to BANG the market by heavy sales.
