bang

Etymology 1

From Middle English *bangen, from Old English *bangian or borrowed from Old Norse banga (“to pound, hammer”); both from Proto-Germanic *bangōną (“to beat, pound”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- (“to beat, hit, injure”). Cognate with Scots bang, bung (“to strike, bang, hurl, thrash, offend”), Icelandic banga (“to pound, hammer”), Old Swedish bånga ("to hammer"; whence modern Swedish banka (“to knock, pound, bang”)), Danish banke (“to beat”), bengel (“club”), Low German bangen, bangeln (“to strike, beat”), West Frisian bingel, bongel, Dutch bengel (“bell; rascal”), German Bengel (“club”), bungen (“to throb, pulsate”). In the sense of a fringe of hair, from bang off. In the sense of abrupt left turn, from Boston left and associated risk of a crash.

noun

1. A sudden percussive noise.
   When he struck it with a hammer, there was a loud bang.
   A fiendish yell then followed / Ev'ry salvo's 'bang' and 'bloop'. 1992, Bob Magor, Blood on the Board, page 39
2. A strike upon an object causing such a noise.
3. An explosion.
4. (US, archaic) Synonym of bangs: hair hanging over the forehead, especially a hairstyle with such hair cut straight across.
   Tiffany has long hair and bangs.
   his hair cut in front like a young lady's bang 1880, William Dean Howells, The Undiscovered Country
   She was not much to look at. Her red hair hung in an uncurled bang over her forehead 1902, Barbara Baynton, Squeaker's Mate; reprinted in Carmel Bird, editor, The Penguin Century of Australian Stories, 2000
5. (chiefly US) The symbol !, known as an exclamation point.
   An e-mail address with an ! is called a bang path.
   Incidentally, a useful abbreviation for "Exclamation point" is "Bang." 1980, C.W. Wilkinson, Peter H. Clarke, Dorothy C.M. Wilkinson, Communicating through Letters and Reports, 7th edition, page 651
6. (mathematics) A factorial, in mathematics, because the factorial of n is often written as n!
7. (vulgar, slang) An act of sexual intercourse.
8. An offbeat figure typical of reggae songs and played on guitar and piano.
9. (slang, mining) An explosive product.
   Load the bang into the hole.
10. (slang) An injection, a shot (of a narcotic drug).
11. (slang, US, Boston area) An abrupt left turn.
12. (Ireland, colloquial, slang) strong smell (of)
    There was a bang of onions off his breath.
13. (slang) A thrill.
    "We all know you give great parties, Mr. Lippincott." "It gives me a bang, even a bigger bang than this," Mr. Lippincott said, indicating his drink and then finishing it. 1993, Douglas Woolf, Sandra Braman, Hypocritic Days & Other Tales, page 40
    Yes, he got a bang out of cheating Rollo. 2000, James Hadley Chase, Make the Corpse Walk, page 31

verb

1. (intransitive) To make sudden loud noises, and often repeatedly, especially by exploding or hitting something.
   The fireworks banged away all through the night.
   Stop banging on the door. I heard you the first time!
   My head was banging after drinking all night at the concert.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To hit hard.
   He banged the door shut.
   David and Mary banged into each other.
   Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall. 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days
3. (slang, transitive, intransitive, vulgar) To engage in sexual intercourse.
   We can hear the couple banging upstairs.
   It's also my job to take care of the skanks on the road that you bang. 1996, Cameron Crowe, Jerry Maguire, spoken by Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), Culver City, Calif.: TriStar Pictures; distributed by Columbia TriStar Home Video, published 1997
   Moe Greene: He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time! 1972, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather
4. (with "in") To hammer or to hit anything hard.
   Hold the picture while I bang in this nail.
5. (transitive) To cut squarely across, as the tail of a horse, or a person's forelock; to cut (the hair).
   His hair banged even with his eyebrows. c. 1883, Frank Hamilton Cushing, Becomin a Zuni
6. (transitive, slang, drugs) To inject intravenously.
   Do you smoke meth? No, I bang it.
7. (finance, transitive, dated) To depress the prices in (a market).
   This accompt has been made to appear a bull accompt, i.e. that the bulls cannot take their stock. The fact is the reverse; it is a bear accompt, but the bears, unable to deliver their stock, have conjointly banged the market, and pocketed the tickets, to defeat the rise and loss that would have ensued to them by their buying on a rising price on the accompt day […] 1821, Bank of England, The Bank - The Stock Exchange - The Bankers ..., page 64
   […] the London "Bears" have promptly banged the market again […] 1902, Truth, volume 50, page 1138
8. (slang, transitive, obsolete) To excel or surpass.
9. (intransitive, stative, slang) To be excellent; to be banging
   This song bangs!

adv

1. Right, directly.
   The passenger door was bang against the garage wall.
   After yet another missed penalty by Kvirikashvili from bang in front of the posts, England scored again, centre Tuilagi flying into the line and touching down under the bar. September 18, 2011, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia”, in BBC Sport
2. Precisely.
   He arrived bang on time.
3. With a sudden impact.
   Distracted, he ran bang into the opening door.

intj

1. A sudden percussive sound, such as made by the firing of a gun, slamming of a door, etc.
   He pointed his finger at her like a gun and said, "Bang!"
   "Just like parade it had been a minute before then stumble, bang, swish! Wiped out!" he said. 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 84
   We help to kill the bloody bandits. Bang, bang, bang. 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 17

Etymology 2

noun

1. Alternative form of bhang (“cannabis”)