knockern.

1388 Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) Pref. Epist. Jerome viii To the askere me ȝyueth, and to the knockere me openeth.

c1425 Found. St. Bartholomew's 5 The asker.. schall resceyue, the seker shall fynde, and the rynger or knokker shall entre.

1552 R. Huloet Abcedarium Anglico Latinum Knocker, percussor, pulsator.

1652 E. Sparke Scintillula Altaris (1663) 103 Lest with those untimely knockers at the bride-chamber door, we..be repulsed.

1821 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto III xxxiv. 20 Rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers.

1888 Pall Mall Gaz. 20 Apr. 11/2 Cardiff sent up two boxers. .. The more terrible..eventually succumbed to a talented Irishman, who knocked out the would be knocker.

1747 W. Hooson Miners Dict. sig. Lijb Miners say that the Knocker is some Being that Inhabits in the..Hollows of the Earth.

1885 Chambers's Jrnl. 2 371/2 In the Cardigan mines, the knockers are still heard, indicating where a rich lode may be expected.

1898 T. Watts-Dunton Aylwin (1899) iii. 24 She had not only heard but seen these knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs.

1612 N. Field Woman a Weather-cocke i. C ij You should be a Knocker then by the Mothers side.

a1627 T. Middleton Chast Mayd in Cheape-side (1630) ii. 20 They're pretie children both, but here's a wench Will be a knocker.

1664 C. Cotton Scarronides 88 That old Knocker good Anchises.

1674 N. Fairfax Treat. Bulk & Selvedge 96 The backstroke will be sure to give him a knocker.

1842 Newcastle Song Bk. 148 (E.D.D.) He lifted up his great long airm, Me soul he gave him sec a knocker.

1898 in H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang (1960) 308/2 That pack of knockers and snapping curs.

1901 ‘H. McHugh’ John Henry 54 I'm not knocking, remember; I'm only saying what I think. I hate a knocker.

1911 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 22 Apr. 4/2 The Cranbrook Herald says that the ‘pestilential knocker’ has been doing his best to injure the Southeast Kootenay by misrepresenting the condition of a party of English settlers.

1911 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republican 27 July The municipal ‘boosters’..have no use for what they call ‘knockers’, critical citizens who are figuratively credited with using a ‘hammer’.

1923 L. R. Freeman Colorado River 386 Disinterested scientists and engineers read the signs aright, and gave warning. Those of them that were not ignored entirely were just as effectually dismissed as Knockers.

1923 J. Moses Beyond City Gates 154 The ‘knocker’ of his home town is, on this line of deduction, a ‘knocker’ of his Empire, a destroyer of thought, labour, and enterprise.

1926 Spectator 3 Apr. 635/2 The intense dislike felt in America for what they call ‘a knocker’ (one who is too free with criticism of his associates).

1928 Sunday Express 18 Mar. 5/2 All the knockers were there,..yearning to find fault.

1956 W. H. Whyte Organization Man (1957) ix. 124 This system virtually ensures that the over-zealous or the ‘knocker’ type of man will not get ahead.

1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 24 Jan. 37/3 Today it would be difficult to get together such a team of ‘knockers’ as Harold Stearns did for his Civilization in the United States. Cheerfulness has been creeping in among the intelligentsia.

1962 M. Harris in P. Coleman Austral. Civilization 57 It is said that Australians are ‘knockers’; that is, they gain pleasure from seeing superiority in talent, intellect or energy reduced to the scale of average mediocrity.

1969 Telegraph (Brisbane) 5 Dec. 3/2 Knockers are people who identify the ordinary Australian bloke as an easy-going, irresponsible oaf who spends more time drinking and arguing with his mates than working.

1972 Shooting Times & Country Mag. 1 July 26/3 Today the ‘knockers’ seem to delight in slamming anything British.

1909 Washington Post 20 Feb. 1 The ‘Knockers’ are an organization of Cincinnati's most prominent business men... The business of the ‘Knockers’ is to knock hard and effectively everything tending to hinder the material advancement of the city.

1818 La Belle Assemblée Jan. 27/1 The physicians with their great wigs had disappeared, and had given place to those who wore a wig with a knocker.

1837 New Monthly Mag. 49 550 Pig-tails and ‘knockers’ superseded the ponderous ‘clubs’.

1844 ‘C. Selby’ London by Night i. ii Jack. How do you feel? Ned. Not quite up to the knocker.

1896 Westm. Gaz. 24 Dec. 1/3 We was dressed up to the knocker.

1933 L. G. D. Acland in Press (Christchurch, N.Z.) 4 Nov. 15/7 Knocker, a small leather pad fixed near the heel of shears to keep the blades from closing too far.

1938 R. M. Burdon High Country viii. 84 A piece of rawhide known as a knocker is now used to prevent the shears clashing when closed, but before this was introduced the clack and snap of steel meeting steel was a noise inseparable from any busy shearing shed.

1941 S. J. Baker Pop. Dict. Austral. Slang 42 Knocker, a leather pad fixed near the heel of a pair of hand shears to prevent the blades closing too deeply.

1959 H. P. Tritton Time means Tucker 31/1 Shears do not click. The gullets of the blades are filled with soft wood, or sometimes with cork. These are called ‘knockers’, and they stop the heels of the blade from meeting.

1965 J. S. Gunn Terminol. Shearing Industry i. 34 Knockers, small pads, usually of leather or softwood, inset near the heel of hand shears. These stopped jarring and prevented the blades from closing too far and cutting the shearer's hand... It is likely that the name developed because they knocked together, but it could be a misspelling of ‘nock’.

1934 P. Allingham Cheapjack xiii. 166 A ‘knocker-worker’ is one who sells things at people's front doors.

1934 P. Allingham Cheapjack xv. 186 ‘The knocker's the only game in the winter’ said London Joe.

1936 Evening News 11 Dec. 11/1 A valued and regular lady customer drives up..and..orders petrol..finds she has left her handbag at home... The hand..yells out: ‘Oi, there's a lidy 'ere wants some juice on the knocker!’

1959 Listener 7 May 802/2 That record of progress in Blackpool shows what can be done if we work, in the first place, as our canvassers say, on the knocker.

1959 G. Savage Antique Collector's Handbk. 156 ‘Knockers’ are jewellery and antique dealers who operate by calling from door to door in search of something to buy, and their purchases are sold to larger dealers.

1960 A. Prior in Pick of Today's Short Stories XI. 185 If I kept getting as much jewellery for him on the knocker then perhaps he wouldn't have to sell.

1963 J. F. Straker Final Witness viii. 81 Once she got a whole pile of stuff on the knocker, and then the firm came and took it back.

a1966 M. Allingham Cargo of Eagles (1968) ix. 116 I've worked the knocker if you know what that means—the door-to-door selling racket.

1967 Sun 17 July 7/2 The ‘knocker boys’..trick old ladies into parting with family heirlooms for a fraction of their value.

1970 Sunday Times 18 Jan. 37 A knocker was a specially trained salesman working, not under the authority and generally not in the pay of a district sales agent, but for the company itself, out of the Dayton executive offices.

1941 J. Smiley Hash House Lingo 25 Fix the knockers—look at the nice breasts on that woman.

1948 N. Mailer Naked & Dead (1949) iii. ii. 484 Look at the knockers on her, Murray says.

1967 J. Kennaway Some Gorgeous Accident i. 15 She was slight..but with great little knockers—breasts being for mothers.

1970 Private Eye 11 Sept. 16 Hello, luv! Phew, look at them knockers!!

1972 M. J. Bosse Incident at Naha 24 I'm jealous. She has those big knockers, and I'm afraid you like them.