英和和英

発音

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈnɒk.əˌbaʊt/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈnɑk.əˌbaʊt/

形容詞

knockabout (not comparable)

1. Boisterous
   • 2009 January 19, Alastair Macaulay, “In a City Ballet Quartet, Two Choreographic Voices Manage to Stand Out”, in New York Times‎:

     I like the way Ana Sophia Scheller — replacing the injured Ashley Bouder — doesn’t exaggerate the ballet’s second lead woman, but Ms. Bouder’s blend of knockabout comedy and physical brilliance is missed.

2. Suitable for rough use.

   I have a knockabout cello for non-concert gigs.

名詞

knockabout (plural knockabouts)

1. Clothing suitable for rough use.
2. A worker habitually engaged in casual employment.
   • 1889, Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and …, volume 1, page 122:

     We'd had a couple of knockabouts to help with the cooking and stockyard work. They were paid by the job. They were to stay at the camp for a week, to burn the gunyahs, knock down the yard, and blind the track as much as they could.

   • 1896, Mr. Hall, Parliamentary Debates New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, page 585:

     It will prevent these shops from keeping these girls and using them as messengers or "knockabouts" for twelve months, and then discharging them and getting another batch in their place, which is sometimes done

   • 2001, Catherine S. Manegold, In Glory's Shadow: The Citadel, Shannon Faulkner, and a Changing America:

     From what she knew, they were humble people on both sides, farmers and handymen and knockabouts who followed the crops and their best chances state to state. Some worked in the quarries. Some worked in the mills.

3. A person living in rough, violent conditions.
   • 1983, Michael MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth Century England, page 91:

     They denounced the peasant's passions as animal lusts and complained that vagabonds and knockabouts were "generally given to horrible uncleanness. They have not particular w1ves, neither do they range themselves into families, but consort together as beasts.

   • 2008, Hunter James, Smile Pretty and Say Jesus: The Last Great Days of PTL:

     The guests were mostly reformed drunks and knockabouts who wanted to talk about their troubled trek through life

   • 2009, David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant, Volume I: A History of the American People, page 70:

     The Virginia assembly in 1670 disfranchised most of the landless knockabouts, accusing them of “having little interest in the country” and causing “tumults at the election to the disturbance of his majesty's peace.”

4. (circus) A tumbler.
5. (entertainment) A slapstick comedian or comedy.
6. (sailing) A small sailboat lacking a bowsprit, of a type found primarily in the Massachusetts area.

   We sailed our knockabout around Cape Cod.

7. (sports, informal) An act of playing a sport casually or informally.

   The kids had a knockabout with a football in the backyard.

語源

From knock (verb) + about.

発音

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˌnɒk əˈbaʊt/
• (General American) IPA: /ˌnɑk əˈbaʊt/
• 韻: -aʊt

動詞

knock about (third-person singular simple present knocks about, present participle knocking about, simple past and past participle knocked about) (informal)

1. (transitive) To hit (someone or something) all over repeatedly; hence, to behave violently towards or mistreat (someone or something).

   Synonyms: knock around, knock round

   It was known that he would knock his wife about when he had been drinking.

   • 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume III, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 44:

     I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do; but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all: they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen.

   • 1922 (date written; published 1926), T[homas] E[dward] Lawrence, “Book VI: The Raid upon the Bridges. Chapter LXXVI.”, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, published 1937, →OCLC, page 424:

     [Y]oung Mustafa refused to cook rice; Farraj and Daud knocked him about until he cried; […]

   • 2023 February 22, Stephen Roberts, “Reading … between the lines … to Wales”, in Rail, number 977, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 56:

     The place also got knocked about during the English Civil War, with "the spire [of its church] having been destroyed by the artillery of the Parliamentary forces".

2. (transitive) To knock back a drink; to finish a drink.
3. (intransitive, informal)
   1. To move or roam around aimlessly; to be in circulation.

      Synonyms: knock around, knock round

      • 1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:

        'Oh, come, sir,' protested Greatorex. 'This account speaks of a few other specimens knocking about. Surely in a year or two's time this one couldn't be positively identified as stolen?'

      1. (by extension) To live an unconventional life.
   2. To be present at or inhabit a certain place.

      Synonym: hang around

      • 1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], “A Day with the Capercailzies”, in H. L. Brækstad, transl., Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC, page 77:

        He [a hare] used to knock about here in Holleia, and they said he was nearly black. A good many were after him and had a shot at him, but they never had any luck, until this rascally Andreas came here.

      • 1902 January–March, Joseph Conrad, “Typhoon”, in George R. Halkett, editor, The Pall Mall Magazine, volume XXVI, London: Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, →OCLC, chapter I, page 92, column 2:

        [I]n the chart-room of the steamer Nan-Shan, he stood confronted by the fall of a barometer he had no reason to distrust. […] "That's a fall, and no mistake," he thought. "There must be some uncommonly dirty weather knocking about."

      1. (by extension) To engage in a relaxing activity in a place; to hang around in.

         Synonyms: potter about, potter around

         I like to knock about the garden on Saturdays.

      2. (by extension) Often followed by with: to spend time companionably; to hang around.

         Synonyms: hang, hang about, knock around, knock round

         I used to knock about with John when we were younger.

         John and I used to knock about when we were younger.

      3. (by extension, usually in present participial form) To be mislaid in a place.

         Synonyms: knock around, knock round, lie around

         I’ve got some scissors knocking about in the kitchen.

派生語

Further reading

• “knock about, phrasal v.” under “knock, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2022.