knocker-up
knocker-up noun: a person whose job was to go from house to house in the early morning and wake up workers by tapping on the bedroom window with a long pole or similarly convenient implement.
Noun
knocker-up (plural knocker-ups)
- A person whose job was to go from house to house in the early morning and wake up workers by tapping on the bedroom window with a long pole or similarly convenient implement.
- ... And Capper was a very important man. He was the knocker-up in the village of Polkingthorpe Brig — that is to say, he got up early every morning and went round with his pole, tapping on the bedroom windows and waking up the people in time for them to get to work... Old Capper got his long pole...1942, Eric Knight, The Flying Yorkshireman, Benediction Classics, →ISBN
- He [Driver Carruthers] started on the L.N.W.R. in 1907 as a knocker-up for four years, then became a cleaner, fireman, and finally a driver.1945 May and June, “Top Link Drivers”, in Railway Magazine, page 159
Forms of knocker-up
| plural | knocker-ups |
|---|---|
| alternative form | knocker-upper |
| alternative form | knocker up |
Questions about knocker-up
- What does knocker-up mean?
- Knocker-up means a person whose job was to go from house to house in the early morning and wake up workers by tapping on the bedroom window with a long pole or similarly convenient implement.
- What part of speech is knocker-up?
- Knocker-up is a noun.
- What is the plural of knocker-up?
- The plural of knocker-up is knocker-ups.
Words near knocker-up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: knocker-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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Cite this entry: “knocker-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knocker-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.