"knock up"

[Joel S. Berson]

I think Doug Wilson has it.  From OED2, knock (v) 18.i, and covering
the right period:

trans. To break up, destroy, put an end to.
    1764 Foote Mayor of G. i. Wks. 1799 I. 173 This plaguy peace+has
knock'd up all the trade of the Alley.  1776 in New York during Amer.
Rev. (1861) 99 The arrival of the fleet, since which almost all
business in town is knocked up.  1857 De Quincey Whiggism in Relat.
to Literature Wks. VI. 67 The establishment was knocked up, and
clearly from gross defects of management.

Joel

At 9/17/2005 12:45 PM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>Subject:      Re: "knock up"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  >McGann's  Byron's Major Works.  p.1017
>  >From Byron's random notes
>  >101
>  >If according to some speculations-- you could prove the World many
>  >thousand years older than the Mosaic Chronology -- or  if you
>  >could  knock up Adam & Eve and the Apple & Serpent-- still what  is
>  >to be put  up in their stead? -- ....
>
>I think this might more-or-less match sense 3b(2) in MW3, i.e., =
>"destroy"/"bring to an end". Similar to "knock out".
>
>MW3's definition for "knock up", sense 3:
>
><< 3 a : to make exhausted : knock out <hurried too fast and it knocked me
>up [G. M.Hopkins]>  b (1) : to put out of top condition : cause to
>deteriorate <too much food and idleness had knocked them up> (2) : to bring
>to an end : DESTROY <unfair competition had knocked up the once flourishing
>business>  c : WOUND, HURT <got pretty badly knocked up> <if I'm killed
>over there -- that isn't likely, I'm more of the damned sort that gets
>knocked up [Ellen Glasgow]> >>
>
>-- Doug Wilson