knockabout
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈnɒkəˌbaʊt/
- Archaic
:
knockabout
- He proudly showed off his new knockabout, explaining how its design makes it ideal for novice sailors.
Examples
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During our trip, we rented a small knockabout that was perfect for navigating the local bays.
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It's just a knockabout at half-time
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It was never more than just a knockabout pIace.
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He's just an ordinary knockabout like you and me" (D 132).
Academic text (1991) -
When Buster was between roughly 7 and 14 years old, "The Three Keatons," as they would come to be known, were the roughest "knockabout" act around.
Blog text (15) -
He breathed a deep sigh of relief and repeated the procedure on his knockabout.
Fiction book (1995) -
It's been another knockabout month on the frontlines of that old unwon war of attrition about equality between the sexes.
Blog text (14) -
He's a self-perfected American who must respect the saga of the knockabout boy emerging from a tenement culture, from back streets slanting with danger.
Fiction book (1992) -
He lugged out both cellos—the Rowland Ross as well as his cheap knockabout—and brought them into the kitchen.
Fiction book (1995) -
This handsome Knockabout edition gathers Krent's viscerally satirical celebrity skewerings as seen in the smudgy pages of The Stool Pigeon.
Blog text (2)
Synonyms
6
8.1
A small sailing boat with one mast
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Knockabout comes from the simple parts knock and about, like 'to be knocked around' on the waves, so a knockabout small sailing boat has a very simple rig and no bowsprit to make it easier and safer to handle alone.