U.S. slang., Also slock-, slog-, sog-, soc-, and -dologer, -dollager. [prob. a fanciful formation.]
1. A heavy or knock-down blow; a finisher, Also fig.
1836. Haliburton, Clockm., I. xl. I’ll give you a sockdologer in the ear with my foot. Ibid. (1838), II. xix. I felt my fingers itch to give him a slock-dolager under the ear.
a. 1859. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), 425. I gave the fellow a socdolager over his head with the barrel of my gun.
1892. Gunter, Miss Dividends, 36. ‘Yes,—I—reckon it will be a—sockdolager!’ mutters her father’s friend contemplatively.
2. A form of fish-hook (see quot.).
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 319–20. Socdolager. A patent fish-hook, having two hooks which close upon each other by means of a spring as soon as the fish bites.
3. Something exceptional in any respect; esp. a large fish.
1869. Lowell, To Mr. J. Bartlett, 5. Fit for … The Pope himself to see in dream Before his lenten vision gleam, He lies there, the sogdologer.
1884. ‘Mark Twain,’ Huck. Finn, xx. 192. The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and and then rip comes another flash and another sockdologer.
1894. H. Maxwell, in Blackw. Mag., Feb., 229/1. The pleasant remembrance of the capture of a real socdologer.
