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Knockabout   Listen
noun
Knockabout  n.  
1.
(Naut.) A small yacht, generally from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, having a mainsail and a jib; a sloop with a simplified rig and no bowsprit. All knockabouts have ballast and either a keel or centerboard. The original type was twenty-one feet in length. The next larger type is called a raceabout.
2.
A knockabout performer or performance. (Theat. Slang)
3.
A man hired on a sheep station to do odd jobs. (Colloq., Australia)


adjective
knockabout  adj.  
1.
Marked by knocking about or roughness.
2.
Of noisy and violent character; marked by farce, pratfalls, and horseplay; as, knockabout comedy. (Theat. Slang)
Synonyms: boisterous, slapstick.
3.
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.
4.
That does odd jobs; said of a class of hands or laborers on a sheep station. (Collog., Australia)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Knockabout" Quotes from Famous Books



... property rather, I put on my knockabout clothes and went out for a walk. Lodgings being fresh in my mind, I began to look them up, bearing in mind the hypothesis that I was a poor young man with a wife ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... homeless. As I said when I first came here, I have been a sort of a knockabout, a wanderer. I have been a poor boy. The real Marvin Clark, whose father is the real and genuine president of the Middletown & Western Railroad, is a rich boy. I have saved his life when he was drowning. He ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... the ragging became more elaborate. At first the set was content with giving a sort of low comedian, knockabout performance. But they soon wearied of such things. After all, they were real artistes. And Archie Fletcher could not bear being ordinary. But still there was a good deal of sport to be got out of quite common place manoeuvres. ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... pail A camp-kettle. Blokes Guys Chaps—fellows. Bosker Dandy or "dandy Something meeting with fine" unqualified approval. Galoot A rube A yokel—a heavy country fellow. Larrikin A hoodlum. Moke A common knockabout horse. Narked Sore Vexed—to have lost the temper. Gin Squaw An aboriginal woman. Quod Jail. Sollicker Somewhat equivalent Something excessive. to "corker" Toff A "sport" or "swell A well-dressed guy" individual—sometimes of the upper ten. Two "bob" Fifty cents Two shillings. To graft ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... passed in the same hall of audience; soldiers entered and stood as guards, and then came Pharaoh. He was followed by two obviously comic men, who might have been costermongers or knockabout brothers from a music hall, and one comic woman. The men wore modern shirts and trousers and long-tailed coats, or rather dressing-gowns, that had once been as good as those worn by Pharaoh and his prime minister. Turiddu told me they ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones


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