knocking shop

plural knocking shops · alternative knocking-shop · alternative knock shop · alternative knock-shop

1. AustraliaNew ZealandUKslangA brothel.

   [A]lways reminds me of one of the costlier knocking-shops, you know—'Maison Japonaise' …

   1945, Evelyn Waugh, “Epilogue”, in Brideshead Revisited […], London: Chapman & Hall, published 1952, →OCLC, page 300

   3 more examples

   Bloody nonsense, "All come together"... Sounds like the motto of a knocking shop in Marrakesh.

   1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 1

   Mr Clark, an unrepentant philanderer now gone to the knocking shop in the sky, recorded for posterity his liaisons with Valerie, Josephine and Alison Harkess.

   2004 June 12, Vikram Dodd, “Coven's footnote to Clark diaries”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   [It] had made Mick's heart soar, if only briefly, at the thought that he and Alma might outlive the monster breeze blocks that were used to smash their home ground into crack dens, knocking shops and a despairing dust that settled everywhere on people's heartstrings.

   2016, Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Liveright, page 30