See knocker-upper on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "By a regular pattern for (informal) nouns seen also in similar forms, such as fixer-upper and cleaner-upper; the sire sense involves an extra degree of wordplay, as an alternative surface analysis of knock (h)er up + -er is playfully apparent (who knocked 'er up?).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "knocker-uppers",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"head": "knocker-upper"
},
"expansion": "knocker-upper (plural knocker-uppers)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"alt_of": [
{
"extra": "person who knocks to awaken in the morning",
"word": "knocker-up"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "58 2 40",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "57 5 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "72 3 25",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "66 2 31",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "59 3 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with French translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "80 3 17",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Occupations",
"orig": "en:Occupations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "57 0 43",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "People",
"orig": "en:People",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
11,
24
]
],
"ref": "2026 March 13, Ellsworth Toohey, “The long history of waking people up before alarm clocks”, in BoingBoing, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2026:",
"text": "In 1876, a knocker-upper on rounds in Bradford spotted a 2 a.m. house fire and saved a sleeping family.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alternative form of knocker-up (person who knocks to awaken in the morning)."
],
"id": "en-knocker-upper-en-noun-YssND79z",
"links": [
[
"knocker-up",
"knocker-up#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"alternative"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"."
],
"id": "en-knocker-upper-en-noun-zbTuKupp",
"qualifier": "a tool to hammer the top head of a cask into place through the bung hole",
"raw_glosses": [
"(in coopering, a tool to hammer the top head of a cask into place through the bung hole)."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in coopering"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "33 9 58",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English links with manual fragments",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "26 8 67",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms suffixed with -er",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
38,
51
]
],
"text": "What, Shelley is pregnant?! Who's the knocker-upper? [ = Who's the father?]",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The male who has sired a pregnancy."
],
"id": "en-knocker-upper-en-noun-SAH1Q2Hn",
"links": [
[
"male",
"male"
],
[
"sired",
"sire#Verb"
],
[
"pregnancy",
"pregnancy"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, humorous) The male who has sired a pregnancy."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "sire"
},
{
"word": "father"
},
{
"word": "dad"
},
{
"word": "daddy"
},
{
"word": "baby daddy"
}
],
"tags": [
"humorous",
"informal"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "7 0 93",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "male who has sired a pregnancy",
"tags": [
"familiar",
"masculine"
],
"word": "engrosseur"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-knocker-upper.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/44/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav.mp3",
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"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"word": "knocker-upper"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English links with manual fragments",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms suffixed with -er",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with French translations",
"en:Occupations",
"en:People"
],
"etymology_text": "By a regular pattern for (informal) nouns seen also in similar forms, such as fixer-upper and cleaner-upper; the sire sense involves an extra degree of wordplay, as an alternative surface analysis of knock (h)er up + -er is playfully apparent (who knocked 'er up?).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "knocker-uppers",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"head": "knocker-upper"
},
"expansion": "knocker-upper (plural knocker-uppers)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"alt_of": [
{
"extra": "person who knocks to awaken in the morning",
"word": "knocker-up"
}
],
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
11,
24
]
],
"ref": "2026 March 13, Ellsworth Toohey, “The long history of waking people up before alarm clocks”, in BoingBoing, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2026:",
"text": "In 1876, a knocker-upper on rounds in Bradford spotted a 2 a.m. house fire and saved a sleeping family.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alternative form of knocker-up (person who knocks to awaken in the morning)."
],
"links": [
[
"knocker-up",
"knocker-up#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"alternative"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"."
],
"qualifier": "a tool to hammer the top head of a cask into place through the bung hole",
"raw_glosses": [
"(in coopering, a tool to hammer the top head of a cask into place through the bung hole)."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in coopering"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English humorous terms",
"English informal terms",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
38,
51
]
],
"text": "What, Shelley is pregnant?! Who's the knocker-upper? [ = Who's the father?]",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The male who has sired a pregnancy."
],
"links": [
[
"male",
"male"
],
[
"sired",
"sire#Verb"
],
[
"pregnancy",
"pregnancy"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, humorous) The male who has sired a pregnancy."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "sire"
},
{
"word": "father"
},
{
"word": "dad"
},
{
"word": "daddy"
},
{
"word": "baby daddy"
}
],
"tags": [
"humorous",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-knocker-upper.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/44/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/44/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-knocker-upper.wav.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "male who has sired a pregnancy",
"tags": [
"familiar",
"masculine"
],
"word": "engrosseur"
}
],
"word": "knocker-upper"
}
Download raw JSONL data for knocker-upper meaning in All languages combined (3.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.