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
-
Kay woke before dawn to the sound of rain rattling the windows.—
Charlotte Brooks,
Big Think,
13 Mar. 2026
-
This process rehydrates the corms, waking them up from dormancy and encouraging them to sprout.—
SJ McShane,
Martha Stewart,
13 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
When Grace first awakens on his ship, the film cuts hectically around, above, and below him, as if to approximate his mental and physical disorientation.—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
13 Mar. 2026
-
The solemn Moon is stepping into Capricorn, awakening your 12th House of Solitude and Healing.—
Tarot.com,
Sun Sentinel,
12 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
But the former giant just waiting to be awoken is Florida.—
Stewart Mandel,
New York Times,
11 Mar. 2026
-
Iranians awoke Sunday for the first time in decades without Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as their supreme leader after he was killed in US-Israeli strikes, a profound shift in the nation’s history.—
Kara Fox,
CNN Money,
1 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Knock up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/knock%20up. Accessed 18 Mar. 2026.
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