What is the origin of the word humdinger?
The OED marks is at “origin unknown.”
While LIghter also offers no origin, it didn’t take much looking through Lighter to find that:
hummer to mean “an extraordinary person or thing” was not uncommonly used around the 1890-1910 period. It actually goes back to the 18th century.
[dinger* to mean “a striking or extraordinary specimen” was first recorded in 1892 and was not uncommon in the years after that.
Not too hard to surmise that humdinger which also apears in 1905 is just a form or those words.
It is possible that dinger was a backformation of humdinger.
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[sup]Oral sex?[/sup][/ul]
Yes, Please!
