English edit

Etymology edit

smash +‎ -eroo

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

smasheroo (plural smasheroos) (slang)

  1. A blockbuster; a movie, play, song, or other form of commercial entertainment that is a smash hit.
    • 1962, Paramount Pictures, inc, Consolidated Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Profit and Loss Accounts, page 17:
      The third of Neil Simon's Broadway comedy smasheroos to be filmed by Paramount, this is the story of two men, one divorced and one about to be, who become apartment mates ...
    • 1981, Marianne Langner Zeitlin, Mira's passage, page 20:
      Taking notes at one of the monthly meetings, when the league chose the shows that would tour on its subscription series in seventeen cities, she admired Mike's loud and brash arguments on behalf of his latest "smasheroo."
    • 1987, Stereo Review - Volume 52, page 121:
      The good news is that she made her feature-film debut in one of the smasheroos of the season, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
    • 2005, Mike Robertson, Parts of a Past, page 309:
      It was his first number one, his first smasheroo, his first block buster, but definitely not his first 45 revolutions per minute.
  2. (by extension) A big success
    • 1975, News and Views - Ohio AFL-CIO.- Volumes 24-28:
      A couple of years ago when grain speculators wanted to unload a bumper crop of wheat, ole Dick Nixon helped arrange a smasheroo of a wheat sale to the Russians.
    • 1963, David Westheimer, J.P. Miller's Days of Wine and Roses, page 111:
      And is my little do tomorrow gonna be a smasheroo, or a smasheroo?
    • 2005, The Low Countries:
      As early as the nineteenth century, there were people who insisted that locusts were healthier than pork, but they never became a gastronomic smasheroo in Europe.
  3. A violent collision.
    • 1955, American Modeler:
      Afterwards he said his only thought was to get the plane close to the water in case anything happened. It did. "PLOOSHHHHHhhhh-hh-hh-h. What a smasheroo in the drink!
    • 1971, The New Yorker - Volume 47, Part 6, page 45:
      Granted it gets a bit slippery when wet, and now and then will give the old smasheroo to a kneecap — but it endures, gentlemen, it endures.
    • 1968, Stephen McNamee, Seven for the Road, page 58:
      You know, these smasheroos really upset my mother. We always seem to get near one of the tiresome things right at the beginning of every trip, and that more or less ruins the whole thing for her.

Adjective edit

smasheroo (comparative more smasheroo, superlative most smasheroo) (slang)

  1. Extremetly good; fantastic; smashing.
    • 1971, Vogue - Volume 158:
      Fendi's smasheroo short, short fur belted over shorts, worn with ribby stockings, ribbier over-the-knee socks, Oxford ties .
    • 1973, Dixon Gayer, The Dixon Line - Volumes 11-12:
      Managing Editor Steinbacher, wearing his other hat. proclaimed the NJF convention "Socko. boffo, smasheroo."
    • 1989, Dorothy Fletcher, Horizons, page 284:
      Poor Paul will be delighted, after all three smasheroo ladies.
    • 2012, Ron Goulart, Big Bang:
      What a smasheroo pair of gams!
  2. Inebriated; smashed.
    • 1999, News from the Republic of Letters - Issues 6-9:
      "What?" says Leon, spinning around, toasting Freed and Claire with his finally emptied flute of champagne. “I'm smasheroo,” he informs them, unconvincingly.
    • 2015, Norma Fox Mazer, When We First Met:
      I don't get smasheroo. I wasn't smasheroo that night. I had a drink, yes, maybe I had two drinks, but not smasheroo.