slamming

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of slam.

   The boxer kept slamming his fist into the heavy bag.

   Waves were slamming against the pier throughout the storm.

   Note

   The -ing form keeps slam's ergative pattern: a door can be slamming shut on its own, or someone can be slamming it. In the 'put down hard' meaning it usually brings a preposition along, as in slamming the phone down or slamming into a wall. As a gerund it fills noun slots (tired of slamming doors). From there it shades into the noun for the act, which alone can be plural: slammings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The forceful action of something being shut, struck, or thrown down hard.

   The slamming of the front door shook the entire house.

   Repeated slamming eventually cracked the cabinet's wooden frame.

   Similarbanging

   Note

   Usually a mass noun, as in the slamming of a door, but it turns countable when the noise comes again and again. John O'Loughlin's Two Sides of the Same Coin (2011) lists 'wailings and slammings' among the sounds of a reference room, beside coughings and shufflings. That plural, -ings, is the natural way to describe a racket made of many separate bangs.

3. 3
   adjectiveslang

   Excellent; very impressive or exciting.

   She played a slamming set that had the whole crowd dancing.

   Everyone agreed the festival had a slamming lineup this year.

   Similarbanging, killer, awesome, brilliant, amazing

   Oppositelame, dull, boring

   Note

   Approval slang, at home in casual talk and in dialogue meant to sound offhand. In Malín Alegría's Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico (2008), a scene 'was totally slamming.' Totally is its usual booster, and in speech the final g often drops to give slammin'. It grades like any adjective (more slamming, most slamming), but keep it out of formal writing, where it sounds out of place.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A form of fraud in which a customer's telephone service, Internet domain registration, or credit card processor is changed without their consent.

   Regulators received hundreds of complaints about slamming during the price war.

   Her domain was moved to another registrar through outright slamming.

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