A heavy blow; sometimes, a fine specimen secured by a fisher or a hunter.
1837. I hit him one polt—it was what I call a sogdolloger,—that made him dance like a ducked cat.—R. M. Bird, ‘The Hawks of Hawk-hollow,’ i. 70 (Phila.).
1840. Tim gives him a sockdologer and two side-winders, and leaves him for dead on the spot.—Daily Pennant, St. Louis, May 14.
1842. ‘I ’m kin to a rattle-snake on the mother’s side!’ shouted the Earth’s ancestor. This seemed to be a ‘socdoliger;’ (which translated into Latin means a ne plus ultra).—Knick. Mag., xix. 223 (March). (Italics in the original.)
1847. Oh! forgot to tell you, that as I aimed a sockdollager at him he ducked his head, and he can dodge like a diedapper, and hitting him awkwardly, I sprained my wrist; so, being like the fellow who, when it rained mush, had no spoon, I changed the suit and made a trump—and went in for eating.—T. B. Thorpe, ‘The Big Bear of Arkansas: Jones’s Fight,’ p. 41.
1853. A prospectus of a sham paper, “The Socdolager,” was put forth.—Weekly Oregonian, Oct. 22.
1853. Brother A—— [who had heard the presiding elder at another time request the congregation to sing the Doxology], with equal solemnity, occasioned among his hearers a bursting of buttons and hook-and-eyes that would have done honor to Peggotty, by announcing that they would ‘sing the Sockdolager, and then dismiss.’ An actual fact, I do assure you.—Knick. Mag., xlii. 537 (Nov.). (Italics in the original.)
a. 1854. Pray, brethren, that he [the devil] may get such a sockdolager, this time, as will knock him into eternal subjection.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 282.
1854. Then follows a picture of the successful fisherman, staggering under the weight of a regular ‘sockdolager.’—Knick. Mag., xliii. 536 (May).
1857. It is a “sockdologer” against all that hubbub wisdom which prefers the line of safe precedents, &c.—Oregon Weekly Times, Sept. 5.
1860. Anti rushed on, with great force, and planted a sockdologer on the bridge of Wheel-horse’s smeller.—Oregon Argus, June 16.
