Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/133

 one a stinger, etc. The blow itself is designated a whopper; wipe; clout; prop; cant; dig; corker; shooting stars (in allusion to the dazed condition of a person so struck, stars being seen dancing before one's eyes).

French Synonyms. Un gnon (popular); un écopage (familiar); une dandine (popular); un cabochon (common); un estaffion (popular: may be rendered 'a bang on the nut'); un coup de gilquin (popular); un renfoncement (colloquial: 'a blow with the fist'; lit. 'an indentation'); une beigne (common); une beigne (popular); une dariole (familiar: properly a kind of pastry); un coup de tampon (popular: 'a hard shove'; tampon, 'a buffer'); une balle de coton (popular); une baffre (popular: 'a blow in the face with the fist'); un pétard (familiar: either 'a box on the ear' or 'a cant on the gills'); une paraphe (popular: paraphe is properly the flourish added to one's signature); dégrader le portrait à quelqu'un (popular: 'to fetch one a bang in the mug.' Cf., 'to spoil one's picture'); détacher un coup de pinceau sur la frimousse (popular: 'to make pencil marks upon the face'; i.e., 'to spoil one's physiognomy,'—the allusion presumably being to the face as the work of the Divine Artist). For other synonyms, see Wipe.

2. A style adopted by women in dressing the hair upon the forehead, generally curled and frizzed, the process being thus described. To make the bang, one must begin by dividing the front hair at half-inch distances from ear to ear, combing the rest back. This is repeated until the whole front hair has been successfully banged. In England these fringes are also called toffs (q.v.).

1880. W. D. Howell, The Undiscovered Country, ch. viii. When one lifted his hat to wipe his forehead, he showed his hair cut in front like a young lady's bang.

1883. Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 19, p. 4, col. 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.

Verb.—1. To deliver a blow as described under bang (subs. 1); generally, to thump or strike violently; to thrash.

1588. Marprelate's Epistle, p. 4 (ed. Arber). His grace will cary to his grave I warrant you the blowes which M. Cartwright gave him in this cause: and, therefore, no marvell though he was loth to have any other so banged as he himselfe was to his woe.

1592. John Day, Blind Beggar, Act ii., Sc. 2, p. 37. I am sure my cloak cannot go without hands; and I'll have it again, or I'll bang it out of the coxcombs of some of them.

b. 1719. H. Carey, Sally in our Alley, st. 3.

My master comes, like any Turk, And bangs me most severely.

1731. Fielding, The Lottery, Sc. 2. Ah, think, my lord! how I should grieve to see your lordship bang'd.

1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 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.'

1884. Cornhill Mag., April, p. 442. 'Davis,' said Toddy, 'you haven't had a banging this term, and you're getting cocky.'

2. To dress the hair with a fringe on the forehead, cut squarely across, so that it ends abruptly.