gangbustern.adj.
/ˈɡaŋˌbʌstə/, U.S. /ˈɡæŋˌbəstər/ colloquial (originally U.S.).
A. n.
1. An officer of a law-enforcement agency who is known for successfully (and often aggressively) fighting organized crime, breaking up gangs, and apprehending gangsters. Now chiefly historical.
ΚΠ
1930 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 7 Dec. 18 Captain Willemse was known as ‘the gang buster’ because of the part he played in the breaking up of the Kid Dropper, Little Augie and Flanagan gangs.
1940 Common Sense July 9/1 The boys with leather boots who liked to act as a combination of Army, vigilantes,..gangbusters and defenders of the pure Italian or German way of life.
1941 W. Johnston Visual ‘Education’? 27 The release of these gangbuster pictures..coincided with a trial in New York City which provided the national Republican press new material for publicizing Dewey.
1984 Times 29 Oct. 5/1 The gangbusters are stamping hard on the manicured fingers of the Mafia.
2001 D. Kessler Question of Intent vi. 44 The Washington Post called me ‘Eliot Knessler’, a play on the name of the Prohibition Era gangbuster.
2. Something that is outstandingly successful; a winner, a hit.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > prosperity > success > [noun] > one who or that which is successful > that which is successful
success1667
good thing1764
go1780
out1843
winner1913
success story1925
socko1937
gangbuster1946
bomb1954
1946 M. Mezzrow & B. Wolfe Really Blues viii. 117 Josh Billings..came up with a tricky homemade muffler that was a gangbuster—one phonograph needle stuck halfway into the top of a pencil eraser, and another shoved into the bottom with its point out.
1961 Billboard 20 Feb. 15 Joe Goleski, manager of Cosnat Distributing..infos that he has a gangbuster in Andy Stewart's ‘Scottish Soldier’.
1980 Washington Post 6 July h3/3 Queen's ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and six other rock gangbusters.
1985 Business Week 30 Dec. 112/2 If the company survives the trauma of falling oil prices, says Mackinney, it will be a ‘gangbuster of a stock’.
2002 N.Y. Times (Electronic ed.) 30 June This tree is a gangbuster.
B. adj.
= gangbusters adj.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > prosperity > success > [adjective] > exceptionally
raging1889
socko1939
gangbuster1959
1959 Washington Post 26 Sept. a10/7 His swat off relief pitcher Bill Henry..completed a gangbuster day for that old pro.
1980 Business Week (Industr. ed.) 14 June 92/3 1980 is not going to be a gangbuster year for linerboard..but it is not going to be a disaster year either.
1991 Boston June 98/2 Half of the restaurant, called Sam's, had a casual menu. In the intervening years, the casual side did gangbuster business.
2005 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 7 Mar. r2/2 It lasted for several seasons because it aired on Thursday nights between Friends and Seinfeld..which guaranteed it gangbuster ratings.
Phrases
like (the) gangbusters: with great speed, force, or urgency; vigorously, successfully. Frequently in to come on (also in) like gangbusters. Cf. gangbusters adv.
ΚΠ
1939 Muscatine (Iowa) Jrnl. & News-Tribune 20 May 2/7 Cats, those who understand and play swing; come on like gang busters, playing in a terrific manner.
1942 Z. N. Hurston in Amer. Mercury July 89 Man, I come on like the Gang Busters, and go off like The March of Time!
1976 National Observer (U.S.) 6 Nov. 8/3 ‘Orders are pouring in like gangbusters,’ says Bob Koppang, a Hopkins, Minn., novelty dealer.
1986 G. Keillor Lake Wobegon Days 133 Despite the heat and no rain, gardens came on like gangbusters.
1993 M. Crichton Disclosure i. 105 The prototype works like gangbusters. It's twice as fast as the most advanced drives coming out of Japan.
2000 N.Y. Press 5 Apr. i. 8/2 The two have hit it off like gangbusters in a number of informal screening meetings.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.adj.1930