Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) to do roughly or quickly, esp. of writing, to create, to make etc.

1856		Dickens letter 19 Jan. Letters (1880) I 422: We may knock out a series of descriptions without much trouble .
1906		J. London letter 19 June in Bamford Mystery of Jack London (1931) 209: The day is a scorcher, and as soon as we can knock out about twenty letters as brief as this, we’re going swimming.
1912		Van Loan ‘Loosening Up of Hogan’ Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 156: He sat down at the piano and banged out some ragtime.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 277: Even comb and tissue paper you can knock a tune out of.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 7: Write a verse that nobody will ever hear or remember, knock out a chorus that has a swing.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 61: She knocks out two pairs of shoes a day.
1935		Ted Yates This Is New York 29 Mar. [synd. col.] ‘Barnett wants [illeg.] to knockout [sic] a column for the Associated Negro Press’.
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ Coll. Stories (1990) 39: I’ll knock out my couple thousand all ricky.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 23/1: Bang out, [...] to typewrite; to write.
1969		N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 103: Not in the same class as the stuff he’d once knocked out on a lazy afternoon.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 276: It got to the stage when I could sit at the typewriter and do their routine reports, and I’d knock all these out [...] while they were out.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 83: None of them had any real flair for knockin’ out the printed word.
1993		C. Fowler Darkest Day (1998) 333: The first oil sketch [...] was knocked out on a manky old bit of board.
2000		Indep. Rev. 11 Feb. 17: Ron can knock out a fugue with the best of them.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 131: Write a book, too. Bang out a tell-all, you’ll be the toast of the supermarket.

(b) (orig. Aus.) to earn a sum of money; e.g. knock out £200 per week; although orig. of food, in phr. knock out tucker.

1873		V. Pyke Story Wild Will Enderby (4th edn) I 62: By most of the neighbouring miners, they were regarded as two industrious young men who worked very hard for a bare living—‘just knocking out tucker’, as the phrase went .
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 June 26/1: There are about 300 people round about ‘Bung’ Arrow scratching out some kind of a precarious living – the licensed publican must, therefore, have some difficulty in paying the rent and rates and taxes, not to mention ‘knocking out tucker.’.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Oct. 26/3: Having got his company for practically nothing, it is hard lines if the battler-manager doesn’t knock out a couple of pounds a week over expenses.
1914		Joyce ‘Ivy Day at the Committee Room’ Dubliners (1956) 124: ‘And how does he knock it out?’ asked Mr O’Connor. ‘That’s another mystery.’.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town 3: At that time I was knocking out about eighteen hundred dollars per annum selling cigars.
1945		A. Kober Parm Me 24: I don’t know much he knocks out a year, but it must be in the heavy thousands.
1956		T. Sutherland Green Kiwi 97: You can knock out a fiver a week.

(c) to obtain for oneself, e.g. knock out some sleep.

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 413/1: I came here to betther myself, to knock out something betther.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 360: The car was good, and I handled her well [...] and often I knocked fifty miles an hour out of her.
1925		S. O’Casey Juno and the Paycock Act I: I’ll knock out a bit somewhere, never fear.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 25: I thought George was going to knock out some of the usual corn.

(d) to sell.

1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 13: I was busy knocking out the mid-day Racing Pinks.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 63: [W]e’d knocked out a tola’s worth of Charge that afternoon.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 174: You seem to forget what we owe him. I mean it; this, all this doesn’t all come by straight graft. We’d still be struggling in debt if I’d relied solely on knocking out cars.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘Cash & Curry’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Oh we’ll knock that one out and all Rodney.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 52: Garvey spent most of his time knocking out his duds.
2022		J. Sweeney ‘Bad Days in Bakhmut’ in JohnSweeneyRoars 7 Sept. 🌐 The kebab guy [...] is ten sheets to the wind but he knocks out the best, tastiest kebab I have ever had, ever.

(a) to make someone bankrupt.

1873

Sl. Dict. 210: Knock out [...] to make bankrupt; as a knocked-out backer or bookmaker. When a man cannot meet his engagements on the turf, he is said to be knocked out.

(b) to fail an examination candidate.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 656: late C.19–20.

(c) (US) to deprive someone, esp. of money.

1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 77: You have knocked me out of many a good dollar.
1900		Sporting Times 9 June 1/4: This life that I am leading [...] this mixture of mashing and mafficking is slowly but surely knocking me out.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 112: He looked around at the scuffed and soiled sawdust, the beat-up tables [...] and thought that Dino would be smart to use a little soap and paint before the Health Inspectors knocked him out.

(d) to kill someone; thus knock-out man n.

1885		in Puck (N.Y.) 29 July 347: Here I used to nick my rifle, / When I knocked out any white man [HDAS].
1902		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden and Mr Paul 41: She says nobody knocked Napoleon out; dat he put himself in de hands of his frends, and dey put him on an island.
1916		J.N. Hall Kitchener’s Mob 197: I’ll tyke me charnces down below w’en I gets knocked out.
1927		(con. 1880s) H. Asbury Gangs of N.Y. 227: Said McGlon the day after the murder: ‘A guy ain’t tough until he has knocked his man out!’.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 171: He has been knocked out with a machine-gun.
1973		Henry Armstrong in Heller In This Corner (1974) 209: He was what one time was called the ‘knockout man’ for the gangsters. If you don’t pay up something they’d put a bomb under you. He used to do that.

(e) (orig. US) to surprise, overcome or defeat.

1881		Daily L.A. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: An astonished person is ‘knocked out’’.
1887		G.W. Peck How Private Peck Put Down the Rebellion 165: That letter knocked me out in one round.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 25: His wife is brought back an’ is knocked out by the news.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 39: That Valerie had shown up at all was wonderful. The first glimpse had nearly knocked him out.

(f) (esp. US black, also knock flat) to impress, to overwhelm, to delight.

1890		Sporting Times 8 Feb. 5/3: Florence St. John is fairly knocking them out in America, her success in New York having been repeated ‘only more so,’ in Philadelphia.
1899		W.T. Goodge ‘A Snake Yarn’ in Bulletin 21 Jan. 14: ‘You talk of snakes,’ said Jack the Rat, ‘But blow me, one hot summer, I seen a thing that knocked me flat —’.
1912		Mencken letter 12 Nov. in Bode New Mencken Letters (1977) 38: I have no doubts about the next volume [...] you will knock them out with it.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 29: Hamlet runs across ’em and immediately is knocked flat by a idea.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 11: When he played the blues he really knocked us out.
1953		L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 8: Guys and gals, it knocks me out to be able to elucidate before a group of real gone people that’s out of this world.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 97: ‘It really knocks me out, that does’.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 213: The remark which knocked us out was when one of the Chinese men shouted at another in a strong Scouse accent, ‘Der trouble wid youse is you’re yeller!’.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 34: Ain’t ’e a scream, Iron Eyes – don’t ’e knock yuh out?
1999		Indep. Information 21–27 Aug. 66: The smart graphics [...] and awesome special moves are sure to knock you out.
2000		Indep. Rev. 28 Jan. 13: Obviously, I had heard of The Verve, and was knocked out to be offered the chance.

(g) (Aus.) in fig. use, to surpass.

1900

Truth (Sydney) 16 Sept. 5/5: Talk about yer London slums and / Awl there holes of Misery; / I have spotted things in Sydney / Knocks out anything I see.

(h) (US Und.) to arrest.

1924		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Aus.) 14 June 13: To be ‘knocked out’ means to be arrested.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 119/2: Knock out. 1. To arrest.

(i) to steal, esp. to steal everything from the place one is robbing.

1950

P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 116: knock out, to [...] To knock out a place or gaff, is to burgle it thoroughly, leaving it cleaned out of anything of value.