donner, verb transitive

Forms:
Also donder.
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, to thrash, strike with force.
colloquial, not in polite use
1. Often in the phrases to donner (someone) up or (less commonly) to donner (someone) op [probably influenced by both English beat up and Afrikaans opdonder]. To beat up, thrash, hit; moer verb sense 1; neuk sense 1.
1916 S. Black in S. Gray Three Plays (1984) 237Van K: I come from Cape Town — I want a commission in the army, man — I’m related to a British general — I dondered an old coolie op.
1949 H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1969) 123‘Yah! He’s yellow,’ a young convict, an ex-reformatory boy, exclaimed, ‘Donner him.’
1960 J. Taylor Ballad of the Southern Suburbs’. (lyrics)Won’t you take us to the wrestling, We wanna see an ou called Sky-High Lee. When he fights Willie Liebenberg there’s gonna be a murder, ’Cause Willie’s gonna donder that blerrie Yankee.
1960 C. Hooper Brief Authority 60‘These boys were chasing us.’ ‘Why?’ One of the European boys spoke up: ‘The policeman told us to donner them.’
1963 L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 98The gangsters were urged on by ducktail girls, shouting: ‘Smash them! Donder them!’
1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena 23It’s mos funny, Me! Ou meid being donnered!
1975 Blossom in Darling 26 Feb. 111I doesn’t see what’s so scientific about two ou’s dondering each other up, but never mind.
1977 F.G. Butler Karoo Morning 100I told Bul if he said that again, I’d be happy to donner him up ‘into a raw sosatie.’
1980 M. Lipton in Optima Vol.29 No.2, 112Before if he (a Black miner) didn’t do what you said, you’d donder (hit) him. Now if you just touch him, man..they pull you up before a board.
1989 Cape Times 4 Sept. 6If I meet a cop armed with revolver, truncheon, quirt, tear-gas, rubber bullets and a gun full of birdshot, and he tells me to disperse or he’ll donner me, I don’t argue with him.
1990 J.G. Davis Land God Made in Anger 239Then they start beating up Jakob. They donnered him something terrible, cracking his ribs, and they burned him with cigarettes.
1993 [see bliksem noun sense d].
2. figurative. To beat, overcome, defeat (someone or something).
1965 K. Mackenzie Deserter 79You are mad, Japie. How can you have a war without shooting Englishmen? And they will donner you eventually.
1976 Sunday Times 1 Aug. 14The time has come to ‘donner’ the ‘HNP’ and everything else that stands for stagnation and reaction in South African politics.
1980 M. Mutloatse Forced Landing 5We will have to donder conventional literature: old-fashioned critic and reader alike...We are going to experiment and probe and not give a damn what the critics have to say.
1987 F. van Zyl Slabbert in South 9 July 15Those who rule wish to save us from the totalitarianism of the left by imposing on us totalitarianism from the right. For most of us the difference is academic. We get ‘donnered’ either way.
1990 Sunday Times 25 Mar. 5We are busy dondering you around but you can do nothing about it because we don’t want to do business with you.
Often in the phrases to donner (someone) up or (less commonly) to donner (someone) op [probably influenced by both English beat up and Afrikaans opdonder].To beat up, thrash, hit; moer verb sense 1; neuk sense 1.
To beat, overcome, defeat (someone or something).
Derivatives:
Hence donnering  verbal noun.
1976 S.A. Matthews in E. Prov. Herald 26 Oct. 2Security has come to mean ‘dondering’ of any opposition that offers a serious challenge.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19161990

Derivatives