oppugn

Pronounced: uh-PYOON, verb

Notes: I was pretty close to the meaning

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Yesterday’s word

The word sockdolager is

• something that settles a matter; a decisive blow or answer
• something outstanding or exceptional

First usage

Our word came into English in the early to mid-1800s

Background / Comments

Our word is an Americanism; the theory is that it comes from the word sock (to punch) and a corruption of the word doxology – a stanza sung at the end of church services – and that the word thus meant “a blow that ends something”; much like we would use the term “knockout punch”. The reason I know the word is that a different form of it (sockdolagizing) was coined by a man named Tom Taylor for a play he had written called Our American Cousin. You may recognize the play: it is what Abraham Lincoln was watching at Ford’s Theater when he was shot. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, knew the play: one of the lines (“Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdolagizing old man-trap.”) received the biggest laugh of the play and John Wilkes Booth planned his attack to coincide with the line. Thus, it is possible that this word was one of the last words heard by our 16th President.