Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also knock round) to travel around rather than settle down.

1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 85: The Tottumfog reached her cruising ground, where she continued to knock about, betwen the bleak coasts of Norway and Shetland.
1833		D. Crockett Sketches and Eccentricities 24: He bade adieu to home, and, in the backwoods phrase, began to knock about.
1848		‘Major Jones’ Sketches of Travel 8: I’m gwine to [...] spend the summer until pickin time, nockin round in them big cities.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 122: ‘What are you doing to earn a living?’ ‘Oh, knocking and rowing about, mother; doing a job at anythink.’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 43/2: So I was five months out of employment, knocking about – living first on my wages and then on my clothes.
1868		G.J. Whyte-Melville White Rose 191: Gerard had picked up some experience knocking about the world.
1871		M. Clarke in Money Knocking About in N.Z. viii: This is the sort of young gentleman who ‘pioneers,’ who [...] ‘knocks about’ in the wilderness for three years.
1875		Capt. Boyton in Gent’s Mag. 283 June 717: Father [...] knocked about more than I do, and would have traded as far as the moon if he could.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 192: After a few years of knocking about and roughing it, she was anything but clean in her person or manners.
1882		Dundee Courier 22 Sept. 7/3: There were far too many labourers knocking about New York.
1883		J. Payn Thicker than Water II 47: ‘Knocking about’ [...] you do in your steam-yacht or in your carriage with a courier.
1893		H. Lawson ‘Settling on the Land’ in Roderick (1972) 73: He knocks about certain suburbs a good deal.
1900		J. Conrad Lord Jim 77: They looked as though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week.
1914		Joyce ‘A Little Cloud’ Dubliners (1956) 73: You’d want to knock about a bit in the world. Have you never been anywhere even for a trip?
1916		‘Sapper’ ‘Jim Brent’s V.C.’ in Men, Women & Guns [ebook] I have knocked about the place for a good many years, and I have rubbed shoulders [...] with more men than I care to remember.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 24: Ted [...] admitted that he knocked about a bit and knew a thing or two.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 258: Twenty-two seemed to him a great age to be just ‘knocking about’, still insecure, still with a blank scroll of fame to carve.
1961		T. Ronan Only a Short Walk 17: What’s your opinion, Brownie? You’re a bloke who’s knocked about a bit.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 70: I’d been knocking about the bush, jumping trains to chase jobs.

2. to associate with.

1849		Sam Sly 2 June 4/1: We advise T——s S——d, alias the Nobby Carpenter Lad [...] not to knock about so much with Miss H——y.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Oct. 8/1: W.C. Foo has knocked about among the Lord’s anointed in his time, and he finds them no more reliable than a time-payment clock.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 78: She had knocked a good deal about the wardrobes of theatres in all parts of the colonies.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 24 June 4/8: While the dentist swell averse is / To go knocking round with nurses.
1907		N.Z. Truth 26 Jan. 6/5: If women knock about with damned niggers [...] they don’t deserve any consideration.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 225: Cripes! he knew that fellow when he knocked about with the push.
1930		N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 100: ‘There’s nothing in it, this knocking about with stray tarts,’ said George.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 30: I used to knock about with a bloke called Joe Rankin.
1959		W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: He’s knocking about with this girl who’s a sort of nurse in a military hospital.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society 83: I often wonder what they really feel about the arty-tarty crowd I have been knocking about with.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘The Second Time Around’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You, you’re still knocking about with Brownies.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 88: I used to knock about with her a bit years ago.

3. to exist, to be.

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 153/2: Here I’ve been for about eight months knocking about.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 9: After knocking about for some time as a butcher’s boy I resolved [... I would start travelling in some way.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 2: Too careless [...] to look after the rupees or rubies which were knocking about during the mutiny.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 20 Oct. 37: Almost all the other fellows were [...] knocking about in the schoolroom.
1910		Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 158: He could see no troubles there [...] Reason suggested that there were probably one or two knocking about somewhere, but this was no time to think of them.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 70: Your wife — she has a sister something, hasn’t she, knocking about somewhere.
1928		V. Palmer Passage 58: He had knocked about the lower reaches of the Passage since he was a boy, picking up a living in much the same way as a sea-hawk.
1939		P. Cheyney Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 69: Just if there wasn’t enough trouble knocking about.
1948		P. Kavanagh Tarry Flynn (1965) 36: Tarry, did ye to chance see Mrs. Callan’s ducks knocking about this evening?

4. to idle, to waste time.

1852		R.G. Porter ‘The Snapping Turtle’ in Southern Journal Monticelo, Missip. 13 Mar. [1]: Dang me if I haven’t a great notion to get another machine [...] and then knock about the city bar-rooms and public gatherin’ places, jist for the benefit of New Orleans society in general.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 613: Knock about, to, is a favorite phrase applied to persons who have no regular business, and are said contemptuously ‘to be knocking about in spots,’ or ‘promiscuously’.
1885		Kipling Civil and Military Gazette 25 Dec. in Pinney (1987) Just conceive me if you can, knocking about the back streets of Madrid with a vagabond student! I wonder how I could ever have been so low.
1902		J.D. Corrothers Black Cat Club 20: A jolly fellow who has knocked about the levee for the last ten years.
1960		P. Larkin letter 28 Nov. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 322: There’s no sign of the Shetland [pullover] today [...] I expect the soft parcel is knocking about the GPO.
1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 3: I was knocking about down in the town.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 39: He’s always knocking about town, our Anthony, bit of a face if you will.

5. to work as a prostitute.

1916

Ally Sloper 5 Feb. 9/1: For some time she went ‘on the streets’ [...] as the common saying goes, and eventually [...] found a ‘friend’ who was making her an allowance, and that consequently she was no longer obliged to ‘knock about’.