Primary
''smashing'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔
smashing - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Adjective
smashing (comparative more smashing, superlative most smashing)
- Serving to smash (something).
- ✤ The boxer delivered a smashing blow to his opponent’s head.
- (originally US, now UK and Ireland) Wonderful, very good or impressive.
- ✤ We had a smashing time at the zoo.
- ✤ Um, the reason for this call is because I haven’t told you for seven hours that I love you, which is a scandal! And even if we weren’t getting married tomorrow, I’d ask you to marry me anyway. Yes I would, because you are smashing!1
Noun
smashing (plural smashings)
- The breaking or destruction of (something brittle) in a violent manner.
- ✤ Some Greek dance is traditionally accompanied by the smashing of crockery.
- ✤ Incoherency had overtaken his speech, but he was unaware of it. Nor did he connect the smashing of a bottle with the generous curve of his transit.2
- ✤ As soon as this danger was appreciated there followed a nervous smashing and chopping of triffids everywhere, until it occurred to someone that all that was necessary to make them harmless was the removal of the actual stinging weapon.3
- The destruction or disintegration of something by being smashed.
- The hitting of something extremely hard.
- The complete and sudden ruin or ruination of something.
- (informal, idiomatic) An overwhelming victory or success.
- The deformation of something through continuous pressure.
- (slang, vulgar) An act of sexual intercourse.
- (slang, archaic) A disastrous failure of something.
Verb
smashing
- present participle and gerund of smash
Etymology
From smash + -ing. As a synonym for wonderful, the term first appeared in the United States in the early twentieth century, and possibly derives from the sense of smash used in smash hit and similar terms. Popular folk etymology connects the term to the broadly homophonous Irish is maith sin or Scottish Gaelic ‘s math sin (“that is good”), but this has been described as “improbable”,4 and does not appear in the etymological dictionaries.
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈsmæʃɪŋ/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- Rhymes: -æʃɪŋ
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
2010, Toby Whithouse, “The Vampires of Venice”, in Doctor Who, season 5, episode 6, spoken by Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill): ↩
1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 117: ↩
1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 43: ↩
2004, T. P. Dolan, A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English, page 217 ↩
Secondary
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