skull splitter

Noun

skull splitter (plural skull splitters)

1. A severe headache or migraine.
   • Indeed, in many villages, the wine store is called Can Vinagre even today; the vinegar house, where wine is sold in the customer's own plastic bottles from great vats of wine, and it is a matter of luck whether you take away an astonishing vintage or a skull-splitter.2000, Gunter Beer, Carlos Agustin and Belen Tanago, “From skull-splitters to top wines Binissalem”, in Majorca : culture and life, page 158
   • What Andy Eckl of Trumbull, Conn., came down with a skull-splitter in 1997, when he was 5 years old, ad he got no relief until he was 10. He muscled through first and second grade on Advil, but by third grade the pain had spread to his joints [..]2004, Geoffrey Cowley and Anne Underwood, “A Disease in Disguise”, in Newsweek, page 62
2. (slang) Any highly potent alcoholic beverage, mixed drink, or knock-off spirit designed to give the drinker a severe hangover.
   • You don't want that at this time of day; that's a skull splitter.1985, Heinlein, Robert A. (Robert Anson), 1907-1988, Job : a comedy of justice, page 50