knock off

In the verb sense of stopping work, said to be from the practice aboard slave galleys to have a man beat time for the rowers by knocking on a block or drum; when he stopped, the rowers could rest.

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

knock off (plural knock offs)

1. Alternative form of knockoff

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

1. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To halt one's work or other activity.

   I think I'll knock off for the evening and go to bed.

   • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2:

     Remember that this news was brought by the last steamer. That explains the stoppage of all communication, and the arrival of no more ships. We knocked off work a few days ago, and we're just waiting to see when things are to start afresh.

   Synonyms: call it a day, call it a night, down tools

2. (transitive, slang) To kill.

   The mobsters hired the guy to knock off their enemies.

   Synonyms: bump off, do away with, whack; see also Thesaurus:kill

   1. (sports, by extension) To defeat.

      The Hammers knocked off Arsenal on the strength of a 78th-minute tally from Jarrod Bowen.

3. (transitive) To remove, as a discount or estimate.

   They agreed to knock off 20% of the price.

   Synonyms: deduct, take off; see also Thesaurus:remove

4. (transitive, slang) To rob.

   They decided to knock off a liquor store downtown.

   Synonyms: mill, burgle; see also Thesaurus:steal

5. (transitive) To make a copy of, as of a design.

   They send people to the shows in Milan for "ideas", which means knocking off the designs they guess would sell.

   Synonyms: plagiarize, rip off

6. (transitive) To assign (an item) to a bidder at an auction, indicated by knocking on the counter.
7. (transitive, slang) To have sex with.
   • 1965, Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land:

     I took her down to Basin Street and to a movie, then took her to my room and knocked her off.

   Synonyms: coitize, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

8. (transitive, informal) To accomplish hastily.

   I knocked off a couple of quick sketches before the design meeting.

   Synonym: knock out

9. To remove by hitting (something, someone)

   He was knocked off his bike.

   • 1943 May and June, “Notes and News: Effective Locomotive "Ack-Ack" Fire”, in Railway Magazine, page 180:

     It now appears that the locomotive did not blow up, as was commonly stated at the time, but that the aeroplane flew so low as to come into contact with the dome of the engine, knocking it off. It was the combination of the impact and the uprush of steam that so disturbed the equilibrium of the raider as to cause it to crash.

• → Dutch: afnokken (calque)