different between knocker vs knicker

English

Etymology

knock +? -er

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?k?(r)

Noun

knocker (plural knockers)

1. A device, usually hinged with a striking plate, used for knocking on a door.
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.
4. (informal, derogatory) A person who knocks (denigrates) something.
5. (slang, usually in the plural) A woman's breasts.
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 […]

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

Translations

English

Etymology 1

Noun

knicker (uncountable)

1. (used attributively as a modifier) Of or relating to knickers.

   knicker elastic, knicker drawer, knicker thief

   A knicker nicker nicked a pair of knickers off the clothesline.

2. knickerbockers
   • 1983, David Lanier Lewis, Laurence Goldstein, The Automobile and American Culture (page 58)

     Country club men had reinstated the knicker, adding four inches in length […]

   • 1925, The Clothier and Furnisher (volume 106, page 79)

     A sock worn in the regulation fashion, under the knicker, looks neatest and permits the proper full flare of the knicker.

Etymology 2

From Dutch knikker.

Noun

knicker (plural knickers)

1. (dated, dialect, Britain, US) A small ball of clay, baked hard and oiled, used as a marble in games.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /(k)ni.kœ?/
• Rhymes: -œ?

Noun

knicker m (plural knickers)

1. Alternative form of knickers

Further reading

• “knicker” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).