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
-
Cracker Barrel proudly announced a new, streamlined, unexciting logo, explained it poorly, defended it clumsily, and failed to recognize that anything remotely resembling a jab at white people, Southern heritage or tradition these days will be attacked as woke.—
Neal Rubin,
Freep.com,
28 Aug. 2025
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Giovanni recommends an early walk along the castle walls before the town wakes.—
Daniel Scheffler,
Forbes.com,
28 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Gnawing paranoia inevitably awakens Pynchon’s characters to the matrix of control enveloping their lives.—
John Lopez,
HollywoodReporter,
6 Sep. 2025
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Many of us in the workforce don’t have the luxury of when to hit the hay or awaken in the morning.—
Bryan Robinson,
Forbes.com,
6 Sep. 2025
Verb
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There won’t be a day when Americans awake to news that vaccines are prohibited, or that the National Institutes of Health has been shuttered.—
Dhruv Khullar,
New Yorker,
6 Sep. 2025
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After traversing nearby neighborhoods with William in their patrol car, officers found the boy's home and awoke his parents to the news.—
Melina Khan,
USA Today,
4 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Knock up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/knock%20up. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
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