as in to wake
to cause to stop sleeping
I asked the clerk at the hotel to knock me up at 7:00 a.m.
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Recent Examples of knock up
Meanwhile, while Miranda busies herself with building a pageant empire, her husband Ray, a pill-popping nurse, has knocked up the 18-year-old granddaughter of one of his hospice patients.
—
Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 28 Aug. 2025
Julia, worried, maintains that she’s not knocked up.
—Kimberly Roots, TVLine, 15 Aug. 2025
With 200 hp worth of empty space to play with before knocking up against the 600-hp V12 Verado, Mercury is dialing up the overall output of the V10 range by adding a new 425-hp variant as the flagship of the family.
—New Atlas, 12 Aug. 2025
Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 28 Aug. 2025
Julia, worried, maintains that she’s not knocked up.
—Kimberly Roots, TVLine, 15 Aug. 2025
With 200 hp worth of empty space to play with before knocking up against the 600-hp V12 Verado, Mercury is dialing up the overall output of the V10 range by adding a new 425-hp variant as the flagship of the family.
—New Atlas, 12 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for knock up
Verb
-
So, that December, my parents woke me up in the middle of the night for our last cross-country drive through the underground.—
Zayd Ayers Dohrn,
New Yorker,
28 Mar. 2026
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The patterns displayed during active sleep often resemble those seen during waking behaviors, supporting the idea that the brain may be reactivating prior experiences.—
Samantha Agate,
Miami Herald,
27 Mar. 2026
Verb
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His execution awakened other regional ethnic groups — the Ijaws, especially — who faced similar environmental problems and were now inspired to protest for their rights in similar fashion.—
Noo Saro-Wiwa,
The Dial,
24 Mar. 2026
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As temperatures climb and trees bud with the arrival of spring, a native frog species is awakening after months being frozen and nearly dead.—
Stephen Underwood,
Hartford Courant,
23 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
On a beach in Mexico, the Minutemen awoke to pain.—
Zach Schonfeld,
Pitchfork,
21 Mar. 2026
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The colonists awoke from their dream of lucrative plantations to find churches in ashes and molasses cauldrons rusting in the grass.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
19 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Knock up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/knock%20up. Accessed 28 Mar. 2026.
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