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WordNet
big stick

n. a display of force or power; "speak softly but carry a big stick"

Wikipedia
Big stick

Big stick may refer to:

  • Big Stick ideology, Theodore Roosevelt's diplomatic policy
    • Big Stick, West Virginia, a community named for the above
    • The nickname of the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61)
    • The nickname of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
  • Big Stick (band), an alternative music act who scored a minor hit in 1986 with "Drag Racing"
  • The Chinese monk-poet Fenggan; literally translated as "big stick"
Big Stick (band)

Big Stick are an alternative/independent band that gained much airplay with their debut release, the Drag Racing EP in 1986. It was instantly recognizable for Yanna Trance's voice repeated spoken line "In the summer I wear my tube top, and Eddie takes me to the dragstrip" throughout the track. It was one of the 142 singles in BBC DJ John Peel's Record Box that he'd picked to rescue in case of a fire. Numerous other Big Stick tracks have received substantial airplay and attention over the years.

In 1990, Blast First records released a box set of 10 7" singles by various artists on their roster, including Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Big Black, the Butthole Surfers and Sun Ra. The box set was named after the Big Stick track it contained, Devil's Jukebox.

While the band stayed together and more recently have performed with My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, it is still for Drag Racing that they are best known. They have also collaborated on a film soundtrack, for Besotted.

Usage examples of "big stick".

From the vantage that motherhood had provided she could see that Garrett was simply another of the ubiquitous embryo-men who had swarmed around her life like roaches, roving canisters of unexpended ball juice, toxic to others, toxic to themselves, the lost boys who hadn't found, and never would find, any use to their lives, better off simply being managed by the big stick, big-daddy figures they seemed to be so desperately seeking -- a role, unfortunately for her, completely absent from her repertoire.

But that was Gordon's mannerhe had long seemed to Reggie to subscribe to Teddy Roosevelt's dictum `speak softly and carry a big stick.