What is the meaning of idiom knock down?

Q: What does it mean to knock down a female?

Since the 1500s, to knock” a woman has meant to have sex with her, and the same word has been used to suggest a man is going to knock a child out of her.” Many slang words for sex boil down to a man assailing a woman (consider: bang, hammer, tear off a piece, etc.), which is bad enough.

to cause (a sailing vessel) to heel, as by a gust of wind, to such a degree that it cannot right itself.

Nautical knock off:

Informal Termsto cease activity, esp. work:to knock off at five every day.
to stop doing something;
quit:Knock it off or you'll get into a mess.
Slang Terms Slang. to dispose of;
finish.
Slang Termsto murder;
kill.
Slang Termsto die.
Slang Termsto get rid of;
reduce.
Slang Termsto disable or defeat.
Slang Termsto commit a robbery at;
steal from:The gang knocked off a gas station.
[Slang. Naut.]to blow the head (of a sailing vessel) off the wind.
to imitate, copy, or plagiarize:to knock off designer dresses in cheap materials.

knock out:

Sportto defeat (an opponent) in a boxing match by striking such a blow that the opponent is unable to rise within the specified time.
to render (a person) unconscious:Those sleeping pills knocked me out for ten hours.
to make tired or exhausted:Christmas shopping always knocks me out.
Informal Termsto produce quickly, hurriedly, or with ease:He knocks out two poems a day.
to damage or destroy:The explosion knocked out the power for several hours.
See knock (def. 18).

knock out of the box, [Baseball.]to cause a pitcher to be removed from the box because the pitcher has permitted too many hits to be made. Also, knock out.

knock over:

to strike (someone or something) from an erect to a prone position:to knock over a lamp.
to distress;
overcome:When the announcement came we were completely knocked over.
Slang Termsto rob, burglarize, or hijack:He knocked over five banks.

knock the or one's socks off, [Informal.]to have an overwhelming effect on:The song knocked the socks off the audience.

knock together, to make or construct in a hurry or with little attention to detail:He knocked together a couple of tables.

knock up:

Slang Termsto make pregnant.
to exhaust;
weary;
tire.
to damage;
mar:The children knocked up the new table.
to injure;
wound:He was afraid to come home from school all knocked up again.
[Brit.]to wake up;
rouse;
call:He knocked us up before dawn.

an act or instance of knocking.
the sound of knocking, esp. a rap, as at a door.
a blow or thump.
Informal Termsan adverse criticism.
the noise resulting from faulty combustion or from incorrect functioning of some part of an internal-combustion engine.
Sport[Cricket.]an innings.
British Terms, Business
- one of a combination of dealers who bid together, rather than against each other, at an auction, and later resell the purchases among themselves.
- an auction at which this is done.
- the sale of merchandise recently obtained by a dealer at an auction.

bef. 1000; 1890–95 for def. 4; Middle English knokken, knoken (verb, verbal), Old English cnocian, cnucian; cognate with Old Norse knoka to thump, knock

Table of Contents Show

knock something down
knock down something/someone | Intermediate English
knock down something/someone
(CAUSE TO FALL)
knock down something
knock sb down | Business English
knock sb down
knock sth down
Examples of knock someone down
What is the meaning of to knock down?
What is the synonym of knock down?
What does it mean to knock down a female?

knock′less, adj.

1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged See strike.

'knock down' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):

bludgeon - break - deck - down - dump - fell - flatten - floor - knock - knock-down-drag-out - knockdown - level - low - mow - overthrow - plaster - run - run over - skittle - sprawl

to reduce the price of something they are selling:

She wanted $200 but I knocked her down to $175.

knock something down

phrasal verb with knock verbus

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/nɑːk/ uk

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/nɒk/

to destroy a building or part of a building:

There are plans to knock the library down and replace it with a hotel complex.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Destroying and demolishing

annihilate
annihilation
apocalypse
be sacrificed on the altar of something idiom
blast
costly
fall in
in pieces idiom
indestructibility
kill something off
kill the goose that lays the golden egg idiom
sacrifice
self-destruct
self-devouring
shred
sink
stave
stave something in
tear
wipe

See more results »

to show that what someone has said is not true :

She easily knocked down every argument he put up.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Proving and disproving

actions speak louder than words idiom
anti-sexist
attest
authenticate
convince
credential
demonstrability
demonstrable
demonstrably
dispel
disprove
lie
non-evidence
probatory
proof positive
provable
prove
the acid test
vindicate
vindication

See more results »

knock-down

adjective [ before noun ]

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/ˈnɑːk.daʊn/ uk

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/ˈnɒk.daʊn/

(of a price) extremely cheap:

They're selling jeans for ridiculous knock-down prices.

knock down something/someone | Intermediate English

knock down something/someone

phrasal verb with knock verbus

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/nɑk/

(CAUSE TO FALL)

to hit someone or something forcefully so that it falls down, or falls to a lower place:

Try not to knock the fence down when you back out of the driveway.

knock down something

phrasal verb with knock verbus

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/nɑk/

(DESTROY)

to destroy and remove a building, wall, or other structure:

The city is going to knock the old train station down and build a new library.

To knock down a system, practice, rule, etc. means to get rid of it:

He wants to use the WTO to knock down trade barriers.

(REDUCE)

to reduce the price, amount, or value of something:

He wanted $300 for the ring, but we got him to knock it down to $250.

The SEC knocked down their $1.5 billion penalty to $500,000.

(Definition of knock down something/someone from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

knock sb down | Business English

knock sb down

phrasal verb with knock verb [ T ]uk

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/nɒk/ us

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informal

to persuade someone to reduce the price of something they are selling:

knock sb down from/to sth She wants $120 for the bike, but I'll try and knock her down to $90.

knock sth down

phrasal verb with knock verb [ T ]uk

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/nɒk/ us

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informal

to reduce the price of something you are selling, or persuade someone to reduce the price of something they are selling:

knock sth down from/to sth They managed to knock the price down from €290,000 to €220,000 .

Examples of knock someone down

knock someone down

Of course, a knock-down, drag-out free-for-all can be enormously amusing.

From Dallas Morning News

That's the knock-down, drag-out solution, which could really get ugly, and the league wants to avoid it.

From Los Angeles Times

Picking out the best games of the year is always a knock-down, drag-out fight.

From Wired

The elders proposed some creative ways of talking through disagreements before they get to the knock-down, drag-out level.

From Huffington Post

Yet in the knock-down, cheat-prone world of elite sports, some biologically based criteria are surely needed.

From Slate Magazine

We could be having a knock-down, drag-out fight off-stage, and we'd walk on stage and the rhythm would be there.

From New York Post

It's the source of the film's biggest and most honest laughs: a knock-down, drag-out display of outrageous physical comedy, performed by two actors fearlessly committing to the brutality.

From A.V. Club

The quick knock-down effect on insects, the low mammalian toxicity and the rapid decomposition of pyrethrins in the soil make it an ideal and safe insecticide.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Plus, he is only claiming to make relativism possible and coherent, he is not claiming to have a knock-down argument for it, even when it seems that he does.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It is the custom of prize-fighting audiences to cheer a clean knock-down blow.

From Project Gutenberg

After every knock-down blow she "came up smiling," as the sporting reporters say.

From Project Gutenberg

Take my word for it, that to get over the ground without a thought of the road, there's nothing like a regular knock-down affliction.

From Project Gutenberg

Just after the second knock-down, time was called for the end of the round.

From Project Gutenberg

I'm willing to admit he's too many for me in a stand-up and knock-down fight.

From Project Gutenberg

The point had been reached where one knock-down blow outweighed a bushel of arguments.

From Project Gutenberg

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the meaning of to knock down?

knocked down; knocking down; knocks down. transitive verb. : to strike to the ground with or as if with a sharp blow : fell.

What is the synonym of knock down?

(verb) in the sense of demolish. Synonyms. demolish. destroy. fell.

What does it mean to knock down a female?

Since the 1500s, “to knock” a woman has meant to have sex with her, and the same word has been used to suggest a man is going to “knock a child out of her.” Many slang words for sex boil down to a man assailing a woman (consider: bang, hammer, tear off a piece, etc.), which is bad enough.