KNOCKABOUT • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Knockabout

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adjective

knockabout adj.

Marked by knocking about or roughness.

Of noisy and violent character; marked by farce, pratfalls, and horseplay; as, knockabout comedy. (Theat. Slang)

Synonyms: boisterous, slapstick.

Characterized by, or suitable for, knocking about, or traveling or wandering hither and thither; suitable for use in rough activity; suited for everyday use; used especially of clothing.

Synonyms: casual, everyday.

That does odd jobs; said of a class of hands or laborers on a sheep station. (Collog., Australia)

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Etymology of 'Knockabout'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Knockabout" Quotes from Famous Books

... accepted the offer of a good friend's knockabout, and sailed around the dreaded Point with our little boat tailing behind at the end of her rope. We saw no water that we could not have met in her, but, as our friends did not fail to point ...

— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... loss, Comrade Jackson,' said Psmith, 'to understand your attitude. You fed sumptuously. You had fun with the crockery—that knockabout act of yours with the water-jug was alone worth the money—and you had the advantage of listening to the views of a master of his subject. What more do ...

— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... "They talk about knockabout racing craft," said Clancy, "but did y'ever see anything drop to a berth slicker than that? And that's a vessel you c'n go to sea in, and in the hardest winter gale that ever blew you c'n turn in when your watch is done and have a feeling ...

— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... smash a gentleman's watch and produce it intact from some unexpected place of concealment, the spectators rocked and roared. Then there was a Pantomimic Interlude, with a great deal of genuine knockabout, and, the crowning item of the entertainment, a comic song and stump-speech, announced to be given by The Anonymous Mammoth Comique—an incognito not dimly suspected to conceal the identity of the Chief himself, being delayed by the Mammoth's character top-hat—a fondly cherished property ...

— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... himself hurriedly in a neglige shirt with a windsor scad, light-colored, serviceable trousers with a belt, russet shoes, and a tennis hat-a knockabout costume, he considered. His mother, good soul, thought it a special suit put on for her benefit and ...

— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout farce. Because I did not laugh at him he was grateful to me, and he used to pour into my sympathetic ear the long list of his troubles. The saddest thing about them was that they were grotesque, and the more pathetic they were, the more ...

— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

Words linked to "Knockabout" : rugged, boisterous, sloop