subs. (colloquial).—A sounding thwack: spec. on the buttocks (GROSE): also SPANKER. As verb. = to strike. Whence SPANKING = a beating.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 491.
| But Ajax gave him two such SPANKERS, | |
| They smarted worse than nodes and shankers. |
1857. TENNYSON, The Northern Cobbler, xv. ‘An’ ’e SPANKS ’is ’and into mine, ’fur I respecks tha,’ says ’e.
1869. L. M. ALCOTT, Little Women, xxxviii. Meg led her son away, feeling a strong desire TO SPANK the little marplot.
1883. G. W. CABLE, ed. Strange True Stories of Louisiana, ‘The History of Alix de Morainville,’ in The Century Magazine, xxxvii. 743. My mother, without paying attention to my screams, lifted me cleverly, planted two SPANKS behind, and passed me to the hands of Mme. Levicq.
1885. Queen, 28 Sept. Suggested SPANKING all round as a cure for the evil.
Verb. (old).—1. ‘To run neatly along between a trot and a gallop’ (GROSE), to move quickly and briskly: usually with ‘along.’ SPANKING, adj. = (1) big, jolly, sprightly: as a SPANKING lass (BAILEY); (2) large, big (BAILEY and GROSE), STUNNING (q.v.), WHOPPING (q.v.); and (3) dashing, free-going. Hence SPANKER = anything of exceptional size, pace, figure, or merit: cf. SKELP, ‘He’s a SPANKER to go.’ SPANKY = showy, SMART (q.v.).
1751. SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, lxxxvii. His desire being titillated by the contact of a buxom wench … he … suddenly broke out in this address:—‘’Sblood! I believe master thinks I have no more stuff in my body than a dried haddock, to turn me adrift in the dark with such a SPANKER.’
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 501.
| So spread a table … | |
| Whereon she plac’d a SPANKING dish. |
1790. DIBDIN, Sea Songs, ‘Jack in His Element.’
| I’ve a SPANKING wife at Portsmouth gates | |
| A pigmy at Goree. |
1802. COLMAN, The Poor Gentleman, iv. 2. There are four SPANKING greys ready harnessed … that shall whisk us to town in a minute.
1840. THACKERAY, A Shabby Genteel Story, v. How knowingly did he SPANK the horses ALONG. Ibid. (1860), Lovel the Widower, iii. Here a gentleman in a natty gig, with a high-trotting horse, came SPANKING towards us over the common.
1885. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 19 Sept., 802. We SPANKED ALONG, rapidly accelerating our pace.
2. (thieves’).—To break, to smash: e.g., TO SPANK THE GLAZE (see quot. 1785); also ON THE SPANK.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. SPANK is, to break a pane in a shop window and to snatch some article, having tied the shop door to prevent pursuit (Abridged).
