Word.ws English Dictionary

knocked into a cocked hat

knocked into a cocked hat is the simple past and past participle of knock into a cocked hat.

Meaning of knock into a cocked hat

Verb

knock into a cocked hat (third-person singular simple present knocks into a cocked hat, present participle knocking into a cocked hat, simple past and past participle knocked into a cocked hat)

  1. (colloquial, dated, transitive) To beat up or seriously injure (a person); to badly damage (a thing).
    • Tho' I'll tell ye what, stranger, I'm none your mealy mouthed fellows, and I'm little jubus [dubious] that you're one of them there [John Quincy] Adams men. And I've just seen the time that I'd knock sich a fellow into a cocked hat as quick as name it. But [Andrew] Jackson is safe enough and he's...1830 November 13, “A rencounter. From the Connersville, Ind. Political Clarion.”, in Frederick-Town Herald, volume XXIX, number 27, Fredericktown, Md.: […] William Ogden Niles, →OCLC, page 4, column 3
  2. (UK, colloquial, figuratively, transitive) To completely demolish, nullify, overthrow, or otherwise defeat (a person; an argument, idea, or proposition; or a thing).
    • All the original ideas we had were knocked into a cocked hat by the latest survey.

Questions about knocked into a cocked hat

What is knocked into a cocked hat the simple past and past participle of?
Knocked into a cocked hat is the simple past and past participle of knock into a cocked hat.

Words near knocked into a cocked hat in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knocked into a cocked hat (page history and authors); knock into a cocked hat (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “knocked into a cocked hat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knocked_into_a_cocked_hat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.