Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🛑 To stop 💀 To kill ⚡ To do quickly 💸 To reduce price 🚗 To steal
to knock off

to knock off

184 7.4
Stop doing something, often when it is annoying
  • phrasal verb
  • /nɑk ɔf/
  • Informal
: dejar de
  • She often tells her brother to knock off his annoying habit of teasing her.
  • knock off early
  • let's knock off
  • knock off and go

Am I willing to knock off all my other options?

Autoplay Next

Examples

Synonyms

to drop
vsto knock off
∞ 3.1

To leave out a sound or part of a word

focuses on ending an annoying or inappropriate action specifically
to cut off
vsto knock off
601 3.8

To stop something suddenly before it is finished

describes choosing to stop an activity rather than abrupt interruption
to cut it
vsto knock off
  • Informal
156 7.2

Stop doing something annoying when someone tells you

is a general informal stop rather than specifically an ordered command
to knock it off
vsto knock off
  • Informal
124 8.1

Tell someone to stop doing something annoying

is an informal general phrase to stop an annoying or inappropriate action
to lay off
vsto knock off
  • Informal
118 3.4

Stop doing something that annoys someone

is used to end annoying or inappropriate activity generally
to leave off
vsto knock off
  • Informal
93 4.1

Stop doing something for a short time, for example at a point in a book

denotes stopping completely rather than pausing for a moment

Antonyms

to start
∞ 1.0

To begin an action, event or process

to continue
∞ 1.0

To keep doing something without stopping

How Final

to abandon
607 3.1
to quit
∞ 1.0
stop
117 1.0
to knock off
  • Informal
184 7.4
to pause
336 1.0

Surface Forms

knock off infinitive
knocked off past
knocked off past participle
knocking off present participle
knocks off third person singular

Morphology

knock + off

The particle 'off' can signal cessation or removal, which gives a cue toward 'stop', but the verb 'knock' (to hit) does not independently convey stopping; the imperative use ('knock it off') is conversational and idiomatic. Because the meaning relies on a conventionalized phrasal-verb use rather than straightforward compositional semantics, a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would likely need prior exposure to fully understand it.

Etymology

Knock off meaning 'stop' comes from telling someone to knock it off, as if to knock the action away with a tap or a shove. So it means 'to stop doing something'.