Word.ws English Dictionary

knock-up

knock-up noun: a short practice session before a tennis match.

Noun

knock-up (plural knock-ups)

  1. A short practice session before a tennis match.
    • In the way of friendly knockups I played at times with both the Renshaws and Lawford, but at that time there is no doubt that they were better than I was.1932, American Lawn Tennis, volume 26, page 72
  2. Something constructed shoddily or hastily.
    • One of those unadorned late-fifties hillside knockups posing as intentionally contemporary but really the product of a tight construction budget.2000, Jonathan Kellerman, Monster, page 47
  3. (slang) A pregnancy.
    • When will we wake up? I see young girls pregnant and young boys adding up their “knock-ups” like a scorecard at a mob gambling venue.2016, Veronica Valles, Back To The Center, page 54

Forms of knock-up

pluralknock-ups
alternative formknockup

Origin of knock-up

Deverbal from knock up.

Questions about knock-up

What does knock-up mean?
Knock-up means a short practice session before a tennis match.
What part of speech is knock-up?
Knock-up is a noun.
What is the plural of knock-up?
The plural of knock-up is knock-ups.

Words near knock-up in the dictionary

  1. knock-ons
  2. knock-out
  3. knock-outs
  4. knock-shop
  5. knock-shops
  6. knock-up
  7. knock-ups
  8. knockabout
  9. knockabouts
  10. Knockagh
  11. Knockando

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knock-up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-knock-up.wav.

Cite this entry: “knock-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knock-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.