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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

smashing.

Serving to smash (something).

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈsmæʃɪŋ/
  1. Serving to smash (something).

    The boxer delivered a smashing blow to his opponent's head.
  2. Wonderful, very good or impressive.

    Ireland · UK
    We had a smashing time at the zoo.
Where this word comes from

From smash + -ing. As a synonym for wonderful, the term first appeared in the United States in the early twentieth century, and possibly derives from the sense of smash used in smash hit and similar terms. Popular folk etymology connects the term to the broadly homophonous Irish is maith sin or Scottish Gaelic 's math sin ("that is good"), but this has been described as "improbable", and does not appear in the etymological dictionaries.

noun/ˈsmæʃɪŋ/
  1. The breaking or destruction of (something brittle) in a violent manner.

    Some Greek dance is traditionally accompanied by the smashing of crockery.
  2. The destruction or disintegration of something by being smashed.

  3. The hitting of something extremely hard.

  4. The complete and sudden ruin or ruination of something.

  5. An overwhelming victory or success.

    idiomatic · informal
  6. The deformation of something through continuous pressure.

  7. An act of sexual intercourse.

    slang · vulgar
  8. A disastrous failure of something.

    archaic · slang
Where this word comes from

From smash + -ing. As a synonym for wonderful, the term first appeared in the United States in the early twentieth century, and possibly derives from the sense of smash used in smash hit and similar terms. Popular folk etymology connects the term to the broadly homophonous Irish is maith sin or Scottish Gaelic 's math sin ("that is good"), but this has been described as "improbable", and does not appear in the etymological dictionaries.

verb/ˈsmæʃɪŋ/
  1. present participle and gerund of smash

    form-of · gerund · participle · present
Where this word comes from

From smash + -ing. As a synonym for wonderful, the term first appeared in the United States in the early twentieth century, and possibly derives from the sense of smash used in smash hit and similar terms. Popular folk etymology connects the term to the broadly homophonous Irish is maith sin or Scottish Gaelic 's math sin ("that is good"), but this has been described as "improbable", and does not appear in the etymological dictionaries.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.