knocker
See also: Knocker
English
A door knocker in Paris
Etymology
knock + -er
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɒkə(ɹ)
Noun
knocker (plural knockers)
- A device, usually hinged with a striking plate, used for knocking on a door.
- 2016 August 18, Ben Gallaty (lyrics and music), “Small Red Boy”, in The Bible 2, performed by AJJ:
- His tongue became a staircase, his uvula the knocker/Of an ornate wooden door that led me straight into my future
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- A person who knocks.
- 1963, Patrick Anderson, The Character Ball: Chapters of Autobiography (page 220)
- He was a loud knocker. Despite my usual timidity, after a bit I opened the door.
- 1963, Patrick Anderson, The Character Ball: Chapters of Autobiography (page 220)
- A critic; one who disparages.
- 1947, Saul Bellow, The Victim:
- "I try to give everybody credit," declared the old man. "I am not a knocker. I am not too good for this world."
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- (informal, derogatory) A person who knocks (denigrates) something.
- (slang, usually in the plural) A woman's breasts.
- (especially Cardigan, in South Wales, archaic) A dwarf, goblin, or sprite imagined to dwell in mines and to indicate the presence of ore by knocking. [18th to 19th c.]
- (pinball) A mechanical device in a pinball table that produces a loud percussive noise.
- 1963, Harper's magazine (volume 226)
- A good game needs color, lights, bells, gongs, and knockers, all to assure the player he is making progress […]
- 1963, Harper's magazine (volume 226)
- (dated, slang) A person who is strikingly handsome or otherwise admirable; a stunner.
- A large cockroach, especially Blaberus giganteus, of semitropical America, which is able to produce a loud knocking sound.
- (geology) A large, boulder-shaped outcrop of bedrock in an otherwise low-lying landscape, chiefly associated with a mélange.
- (slang) One who defaults on payment of a wager.
- 2004, Carl Chinn, Better Betting with a Decent Feller (page 48)
- To the consternation of those who believed that bookies were 'knockers' (defaulters), he paid his losses with alacrity […]
- 2004, Carl Chinn, Better Betting with a Decent Feller (page 48)
Synonyms
- (a woman's breasts): See also Thesaurus:breasts
Derived terms
Derived terms
- cock-knocker
- doorknocker, door knocker
- fartknocker
- knockers
- knocker-up
- nigger knocker
- on the knocker
- saggar maker's bottom knocker
- slobber knocker
- tin knocker
- tommyknocker
Translations
device for knocking on a door — see doorknocker
person who denigrates something
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slang: woman's breasts
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mine spirit
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