knock around

present singular third person knocks around · participle present knocking around · participle past knocked around · past knocked around

1. informalSynonym of knock about.

   I like to knock around the garden on Saturdays.

   5 more examples

   I used to knock around with John when we were younger.

   I’ve got some scissors knocking around somewhere in the kitchen.

   It was known that he would knock his wife around when he had been drinking.

   He moved to go. / ― Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 5: Lotus Eaters]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 72

   Film-making seems to run in the family. Charlie Spencer Chaplin and my great-grandmother were siblings, and my grandad used to knock around London with Charlie when they were lads.

   2021 December 1, “Stop & Examine”, in Rail, number 945, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 71

   Synonyms: knock about