Word.ws English Dictionary

knock in

knock in noun: the game of lanterloo.

Noun

knock in

  1. (archaic) The game of lanterloo.
    • "Do you feel inclined to have a knock in for an hour?" said Charles, addressing Tom.
      "I don't understand much of the game."
      […] He was seldom indeed without two good trumps, and therefore almost invariably loo'd those who stood.1847, Henry Cockton, The Love Match, page 232

Verb

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

  1. (obsolete, Oxford University slang) To enter college after hours—after half-past ten at night when the doors have been locked.
    • "Close the oak, Jem," said Horace Eglantine, "and take care no one knocks in before we have knocked down the contents of your master's musical melange."1825, Charles Molloy Westmacott, The English Spy, page 138
    • There's twelve striking. I must knock in. Good night. You'll be round to breakfast at nine?1861, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1883, page 458
  2. (transitive) To pot (a ball)
  3. (transitive) To score (a break)
    • With the tension rising Brecel knocked in a timely 51 to leave himself on the brink of victory, which he confirmed with a stylish 112 break.2023 May 1, Steve Sutcliffe, “World Snooker Championship 2023 final: Luca Brecel beats Mark Selby for first world title”, in BBC Sport

Forms of knock in

third-person singular presentknocks in
present participleknocking in
past participleknocked in
pastknocked in

Questions about knock in

What does knock in mean?
Knock in means the game of lanterloo.
What part of speech is knock in?
Knock in can be a noun or a verb.

Words near knock in in the dictionary

  1. knock down a notch
  2. knock down a peg
  3. knock down ginger
  4. knock down to size
  5. knock for a loop
  6. knock in
  7. knock into
  8. knock into a cocked hat
  9. knock into shape
  10. knock it off
  11. knock it out of the ballpark

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knock in (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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Cite this entry: “knock in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knock_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.