knocker

knock +‎ -er

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• Rhymes: -ɒkə(ɹ)

knocker (plural knockers)

1. A device, usually hinged with a striking plate, used for knocking on a door.
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornament only, — nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they’re used.

   • 2016 August 18, Ben Gallaty (lyrics and music), “Small Red Boy”, in The Bible 2, performed by AJJ:

     His tongue became a staircase, his uvula the knocker / Of an ornate wooden door that led me straight into my future

2. A person who knocks.
   • 1963, Patrick Anderson, The Character Ball: Chapters of Autobiography, page 220:

     He was a loud knocker. Despite my usual timidity, after a bit I opened the door.

3. A critic; one who disparages.
   • 1947, Saul Bellow, The Victim:

     "I try to give everybody credit," declared the old man. "I am not a knocker. I am not too good for this world."

4. (informal, derogatory) A person who knocks (denigrates) something.
5. (slang, usually in the plural) A woman's breast.
6. (especially Cardigan, in South Wales, archaic) A dwarf, goblin, or sprite imagined to dwell in mines and to indicate the presence of ore by knocking. [18th to 19th c.]
7. (pinball) A mechanical device in a pinball table that produces a loud percussive noise.
   • 1963, Harper's magazine, volume 226:

     A good game needs color, lights, bells, gongs, and knockers, all to assure the player he is making progress […]

8. (dated, slang) A person who is strikingly handsome or otherwise admirable; a stunner.
9. A large cockroach, especially Blaberus giganteus, of semitropical America, which is able to produce a loud knocking sound.
10. (geology) A large, boulder-shaped outcrop of bedrock in an otherwise low-lying landscape, chiefly associated with a mélange.
11. (slang) One who defaults on payment of a wager.
    • 2004, Carl Chinn, Better Betting with a Decent Feller, page 48:

      To the consternation of those who believed that bookies were 'knockers' (defaulters), he paid his losses with alacrity […]

• (a woman's breasts): See also Thesaurus:breasts