Meaning of knock In English

• 0 to repeatedly hit something, producing a noise:

  • She knocked on the window to attract his attention.

  • There's someone knocking on/at the door.

  • Please knock before entering.

• 1 to hit, especially forcefully, and cause to move or fall:

  • He accidentally knocked the vase off the table.

  • She knocked her head against the wall as she fell.

  • Who knocked over that mug of coffee?

  • [ + obj + adj ] Some thug knocked him unconscious/senseless.

  • She took a hammer and knocked a hole in the wall.

• 2 to criticize, especially unfairly:

  • Don't knock him - he's doing his best.

• 3 a sudden short noise made when someone or something hits a surface:

  • There was a knock at/on the door.

• 4 the act of something hard hitting a person or thing:

  • He received a nasty knock on the head from a falling slate.

• 5 to repeatedly hit something, producing a noise:

  • Someone is knocking at the door.

  • Jane knocked on the window to attract his attention.

• 6 to push into something or someone, often forcefully, causing the thing or person to move:

  • Alice accidentally knocked the pot off the table.

  • The blast knocked him off his feet.

• 7 to criticize, esp. unfairly:

  • She knocks every suggestion I make.

• 8 to cause a sudden and unexpected change in something such as prices:

  • His downbeat assessment knocked the company's share price enough to ensure that it failed to rejoin the FTSE 100.

  • Analysts have warned that price cuts and slowing sales would knock profits.

• 9 to affect someone or something badly:

  • The hotel and conference sector has been knocked sideways by a catalogue of problems in recent years.

  • Manufacturing redundancies in the area are knocking buyers' confidence.

  • be knocked by sth The financial markets were badly knocked by the week's political turmoil.

• 10 to criticize something or someone:

  • Critics may knock the company, but it's still a good investment.

  • You can knock him for some things, but you have to give him credit for his record.

• 11 to visit or talk to someone in order to ask for something:

  • We assist small companies that want to expand their capabilities - if they come knocking, we don't turn them down.

• 12 to talk to a person or an organization because you want them to help you, or you want to join them:

  • In the two years since it launched its first plan, nearly 218,000 investors have knocked on its door.

  • In 1911, 39 per cent of Britain's working women were domestic servants, now they are knocking at the boardroom door.

• 13 to prevent something from happening, or to finally finish something:

  • The company knocked housing market concerns on the head with a 32% rise in full-year profits.

• 14 to be much better than something or someone else:

  • This ingenious colour viewfinder knocks spots off current LCD displays.

• 15 to take action to get something or someone into good condition:

  • His arrival on the board has finally knocked the company into shape.

• 16 to damage something severely, especially by destroying its support:

  • The rise in mortgage rates really knocked the bottom out of the housing market.

• 17 a situation in which something is badly affected:

  • Sales of champagne were up over the key Christmas period despite earlier fears of a knock in consumer confidence.

• 18 a bad experience:

  • take/suffer/have a knock

  • In him, we see a man, toughened by his share of hard knocks, who's had to struggle for every success.

• 19 a criticism of someone or something:

  • a knock on sb/sth The biggest knock on internet phones is that they're only as reliable as your broadband connection.