Sunday Word: Humdinger

[sallymn]

humdinger [huhm-ding-er]

noun:
a person, thing, action, or statement of remarkable excellence or effect; a striking or extraordinary person or thing

Examples:

Do you prefer biographies? Neil Baldwin's Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern is a real humdinger. (Kristofer Collins, Pittsburgh Lit: What We're Reading in December, The Pittsburgh Magazine, November 2023)

But Bellew found a second wind and hurt Cleverly with some big right hands as the fight developed into a humdinger. (Nick Canepacolumnist, Nathan Cleverly beats Bellew to retain WBO light-heavyweight belt, BBC Sport, October 2011)

His marriage to Lauren Bacall was a happy one (after failures with Helen Menken and Mary Philips, then a real humdinger with Mayo Methot, an alcoholic harpy who threw tantrums, threw bottles and at one point literally stabbed him in the back), but Kanfer doesn’t try to fathom how Bacall, barely beyond girlhood, put up with her depressive, hard-drinking, middle-aged and, apparently, philandering mate. (Craig Seligman, Tough Without a Gun: Book Review, The Hollywood Reporter, February 2011)

He says he knows your mine; it's the Golden Prize, and it's a bonanza; regular humdinger! (Edwin L Sabin, The Pike's Peak Rush)

Origin:

1883, American English, probably from dinger, an early 19c slang word for anything superlative (Online Etymology Dictionary)