1768 Gentleman's Bottle-companion 8 He..kneel'd, stoop'd and stood, He fill'd up the trench with a faggot of length, And ramm'd in his charge with a ramrod of strength.

1863 J. C. Richmond Let. 4 Apr. in T. P. Lowry Story Soldiers wouldn't Tell (1994) xv. 160 The Prince of Love, of which I spoke yesterday, alluding to the ‘ramrod and ballocks’, even now larger, stiff and rising at the thought.

1902 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang V. 370/1 The Nymphs of the Stage did his ramrod engage.

1934 H. Miller Tropic of Cancer 148 All you think about is getting your ramrod inside; it's as though your penis did the thinking for you.

1979 A. Sillitoe Storyteller i. iv. 58 I'd undone my belt and zip on our way across, and fell onto her with my ramrod already out.

1994 C. Bukowski Pulp xxxiv. 134 I got this ramrod here and I got to do something with it. I need flesh, not words!

1870 R. B. Mansfield School Life Winchester Coll. 228 Ramrod, Raymonder, names given to a ball bowled all along the ground.

1880 Baily's Monthly Mag. Feb. 93 It [sc. a quick underhand ball] must be very straight so as to ensure a L.B.W., and provided it pitches half-way—for ‘ramrods’ are not cricket proper—the more irregular the pitch the better.

1859 Ramrod Broken 6 The ‘Ramrod’ is the man who goes for stringent laws—so stringent that they cannot be executed.]

1881 E. W. Nye Bill Nye & Boomerang 60 John Humpfner, the ram-rod of the New York House, feared that the explosion might break the large French plate glass windows of his palatial hotel.

1942 Amer. Speech 17 75/1 The man in charge of a herd on the trail [in Nebraska] is the trailboss or ramrod.

1973 R. D. Symons Where Wagon Led i. i. 10 Jake..acted in between times as a sort of foreman, or in western parlance, ‘ramrod’ of the outfit.

2001 J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand xiii. 76 The work crews..are run by ‘Ramrods’ who report to the Casino Operators Council.

1850 H. Melville White-jacket xxxix. 195 Preserving an erect, inflexible, and ram-rod carriage..the Captain made his ceremonious way to the cabin.

1867 G. W. Harris Sut Lovingood 54 A young docter, wif ramrod laigs, lean'd toward me monstrus knowin like.

1905 Pall Mall Gaz. 18 Dec. 2 Under the pretence that, apart from such ramrod rule, the nation would tumble to pieces.

1978 J. A. Michener Chesapeake 74 He saw him as..a man of petty foibles and ramrod rectitude.

1995 Coffee Jrnl. Summer 43/1 Mrs. Dorman, a small but regal woman of ramrod bearing, fled from the Nazis in late 1939.

1936 M. Mitchell Gone with the Wind xxviii. 477 The men added as dessert some ‘ramrod rolls’..and this was the first time Scarlett had ever seen this Confederate article of diet... The soldiers mixed their ration of corn meal with water, and salt too when they could get it, wrapped the thick paste about their ramrods and roasted the mess over camp fires.

1883 Frank Leslie's Illustr. Newspaper 7 July 330/1 The artillery..as ramroddy and pipe-clayed as if Von Moltke had had them under the chastening influences of the pickel-haube.

1912 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 2 Aug. 16/3 I was laughing at Jack. You've no idea how stiff and ramroddy he looked stalking down the lane.

2006 Fort Wayne (Indiana) Jrnl.-Gaz. (Nexis) 26 May w3 You..would proudly describe yourself as hard-nosed, bullnecked, ramroddy, stoodpat and mudstuck.

1841 M. F. Tupper Author's Mind 256 His discourse on field-sports, displaying the amiable intellectuality of a Gilbert White as opposed to the bloodthirsty Nimrodism and Ramrodism of a mad Mytton.

1914 A. H. Gibbs Hour of Conflict xxiii. 150 He [sc. Robinson] resumed his aitches and lost his Lower Tooting accent and held himself with all the ramrodism of a man who has served his time in the Army.

2000 Hindu (Nexis) 7 Apr. Controversial legislation suffers from ‘ramrodism’ on the part of the Government (to pass its favoured enactments, come what way).

1835 Baron de Berenger Helps & Hints how to Protect Life & Property xiii. 226 Push the ball carefully some way into the barrel, that is, with the ramrod-like end of your mallet.

1906 Van Wert (Ohio) Daily Bull. 27 Aug. 4/3 The elite of Santiago have their brass buttoned, silk tiled, ramrodlike coachmen and footmen.

2000 Meet the Press (NBC News TV Transcript) 15 Oct. 10/1 Was he the one gentleman who stood behind the president kind of ramrod-like?

1912 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 11 Aug. (Comics section) 4 Then I was ramrodded into the gun and pressed tightly against a charge of fifty pounds of powder.

1966 S. Heaney Death of Naturalist 39 A volley of cold blood ramrodding the current.

1976 Publishers Weekly 8 Mar. 57/1 Railroad builders par excellence who ramrod tracks across the virgin countryside.

1986 Shooting News 1 Aug. 23/2 To quickly reload, pop the loading block over the muzzle and deftly ramrod the whole into the barrel.

2006 East Valley (Mesa, Arizona) Tribune (Nexis) 4 Nov. Groscost used a series of parliamentary maneuvers to ramrod the bill through in the closing hours of the legislative session.

1920 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 18 Oct. 1/5 He will find Mr. Love right on the job—with as much devotion and thoroughness as though he was ramrodding a prohibition convention in Texas.

1948 Pop. Western June 15/2 This is Tex Grant, the star-toter who ramrods this burg.

1973 R. D. Symons Where Wagon Led i. vii. 118 I ramrodded the Circle Diamond for quite a few years after that.

1988 ‘J. Norst’ Colors xiv. 180 Baines would ramrod the raid on Sharon Robbins's house because it was Homicide's case.

2003 Intelligencer (Doylestown, Pa.) 6 Oct. a7/3 Lee Atwater, who ramrodded dirty tricks for the George Herbert Walker Bush White House.