knocking up

Verb

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

1. (colloquial) To put together, fabricate, or assemble, particularly if done hastily or temporarily.
   • I'll just knock up a quick demo for the sales presentation.

   Synonyms:

   knock together, run up, construct, kludge

2. (UK) To awaken (someone) as by knocking at the door; rouse; call; summon; also, to go door-to-door on election day to persuade a candidate's supporters to go to the polling station and vote. See also knocker up.
   • However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 15”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   bring round

3. (dated) To exhaust; wear out; tire out; to fatigue until unable to do more.
   • ‘Now, mamma,’ he said, when he went out, ‘take notice, you are not to knock up your god-daughter with gossip,’ [...]1835, Charlotte Brontë, chapter XVII, in Villette

   Synonyms:

   tire

4. (dated, intransitive) To become exhausted or worn out; to fail of strength; to become wearied, as with labor; to give out.
   • […] the horses were beginning to knock up under the fatigue of such severe service […]1856, Thomas de Quincey, Memorials, page 81

   Synonyms:

   tire, weary

5. (US, slang) To impregnate, especially out of wedlock or accidentally. See knocked up.
   • I guess his summer plans are shot now that he knocked his girlfriend up.

   Synonyms:

   get with child

6. (intransitive, racket sports) To gently hit the ball back and forth before a tennis match, as practice or warm-up, and to gauge the state of the playing surface, lighting, etc. See knock-up.
   • The Tennis & Rackets Association - Tournament Rules
     Official Knock up: if the players knock up together a maximum of five minutes shall be permitted; if they knock up separately each player shall be permitted to knock up for a maximum of five minutes.

See all 8 meanings of knock up