# knock out
## English
### Pronunciation

* Audio (General Australian):(file)

### Verb

knock out (third-person singular simple present knocks out, present participle knocking out, simple past and past participle knocked out)
* To strike or render unconscious
** (transitive) To strike or bump (someone or something) out.
    I accidentally knocked out the glass in my picture frame.
** (transitive, idiomatic) To render unconscious, as by a blow to the head.
    The boxer knocked out his opponent in the third round.
*** 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
** (transitive, informal, idiomatic) To put to sleep.
    The allergy pill knocked him out for a good three hours.
** (intransitive, informal, idiomatic) To fall asleep, especially suddenly.
*** 2014, D. G. Driver, Cry of the Sea, page 61:That's a put-you-straight-to-sleep book if there ever was one, and I knocked right out after two paragraphs.
** (transitive, informal, idiomatic) To exhaust.
    Running errands all day really knocked him out.
** (transitive, informal, idiomatic) To impress, surpass or overwhelm (someone).
** (transitive, slang) To defeat or kill (someone).
** (transitive, idiomatic) To cause a mechanism to become non-functional by damaging or destroying it.
    The antitank gun knocked out the enemy tank.
** (transitive) To eliminate from a contest or similar.
*** 1980, InfoWorld, volume 2, number 20:As they were approaching bankruptcy from being knocked out of the calculator market, they began development on the first commercially available microcomputer, the Altair.
*** 2011 December 15, Marc Higginson, “Shamrock Rovers 0-4 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport:Tottenham were knocked out of the Europa League, despite a comfortable victory over Shamrock Rovers in Dublin.
* (transitive) To communicate (a message) by knocking.
    The prisoner knocked out a message on the wall for the prisoner in the adjoining cell.
* (transitive, informal) To complete, especially in haste; knock off.
    They knocked out the entire project in one night.
* To lose the scent of hounds in fox-hunting.
* (obsolete, Oxford University slang) To leave college after hours—after half-past ten at night when the doors have been locked.
** 1861, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1883, page 503:"Hullo!" he said, getting up; "time for me to knock out, or old Copas will be in bed. […] "
* (transitive, Australia) To obtain or earn (something, often money or food).
* (transitive, slang, UK) To sell.

#### Derived terms

* knock one out
* knock oneself out → don't knock yourself out

#### Related terms

* knockout
* (leave after hours): knock in (“enter after hours”)

#### Descendants

* → Macedonian: нокаут (nokaut)
* → Portuguese: nocaute
* → Russian: нокаут (nokaut)
* → Serbo-Croatian: нокаут
* → Spanish: nocaut
* → Turkish: nakavt

#### See also

* kick out
* punch out
* strike out