knockabout

[ nok-uh-bout ]
See synonyms for knockabout on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Nautical. any of various fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessels having a single jib bent to a stay from the stemhead, no bowsprit being used: usually rigged as a sloop.

  2. something designed or suitable for rough or casual use, as a sturdy jacket, a secondhand car, etc.

  1. a slapstick comedian or comedy.

  2. Australian. an itinerant farm hand or ranch hand; an itinerant handyman.

  3. British Archaic. wanderer.

adjective
  1. suitable for rough use, as a garment: a knockabout jacket and jeans.

  2. characterized by knocking about; rough; boisterous.

  1. slapstick: knockabout comedy.

  2. shiftless; aimless: a knockabout kind of person.

Origin of knockabout

1
First recorded in 1875–80; noun, adj. use of verb phrase knock about

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use knockabout in a sentence

  • We have tastes in common; for instance, we do not like knock-about brothers at a music-hall—they bore us.

    Castellinaria | Henry Festing Jones
  • Certainly Edward Pierson shrank from the rough touches of a knock-about philosophy.

    Saint's Progress | John Galsworthy
  • He has collected his knock-about money, his shearing, and his harvest money about the end of January.

    The Crooked Stick | Rolf Boldrewood
  • There's a knock-about pantomime outfit at the Canterbury—Martinetti I think the name is—that's damned good.

    The Market-Place | Harold Frederic
  • Jones brought me home on that neat little knock-about spad he's just bought.

British Dictionary definitions for knock about

knock about

verb
  1. (intr, adverb) to wander about aimlessly

  2. (intr, preposition) to travel about, esp as resulting in varied or exotic experience: he's knocked about the world a bit

  1. (intr, adverb foll by with) to associate: to knock about with a gang

  2. (tr, adverb) to treat brutally: he knocks his wife about

  3. (tr, adverb) to consider or discuss informally: to knock an idea about

nounknockabout
  1. a sailing vessel, usually sloop-rigged, without a bowsprit and with a single jib

adjectiveknockabout
  1. rough; boisterous: knockabout farce

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with knockabout

knockabout

Also, knock around.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.