Word.ws English Dictionary

knocked up

knocked up adjective: pregnant, typically outside of marriage. Also the simple past and past participle of knock up.

Adjective

knocked up (not comparable)

  1. (US, offensive, slang, sometimes) Pregnant, typically outside of marriage.
    • My name is Wendy and I first moved to New York when I was 21 to be a dancer, but I broke my big toe and then I got knocked up by this actor who dumped me to join the Peace Corps, so for the last 16 years I been raising my daughter all by myself and then two weeks ago, she tells me that she is a...2000, Gina Wendkos, Coyote Ugly (motion picture), spoken by Wendy (Ellen Cleghorne)
    • I ask him why she doesn't get on methadone while she's knocked up. He says because she not only uses heroin but she's a crystal meth head and a crack head to boot. She got knocked up by a John she picked up one night hooking.2011, Anna Young, I Hate Myself and Want to Die, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 179
  2. (archaic, slang) Exhausted; worn out or used up.
    • I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

Also used as

knocked up is also the simple past and past participle of knock up.

Synonyms of knocked up

23 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Questions about knocked up

What does knocked up mean?
Knocked up means pregnant, typically outside of marriage.
What part of speech is knocked up?
Knocked up is an adjective.

Words near knocked up in the dictionary

  1. knocked the living daylights out of
  2. knocked the stuffing out of
  3. knocked the wind out of someone's sails
  4. knocked together
  5. knocked under
  6. knocked up
  7. knocked wood
  8. knockemdowns
  9. knocker
  10. knocker up
  11. knocker ups

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knocked 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: En-au-knocked up.ogg.

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