knocker

Noun

1. A device, usually hinged with a striking plate, used for knocking on a door.
   • Knockers in this part of the world seem intended for ornament only, — nobody seems to pay any attention to them when they’re used. - 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
   • His tongue became a staircase, his uvula the knocker / Of an ornate wooden door that led me straight into my future - 2016 August 18, Ben Gallaty, “Small Red Boy”, in The Bible 2, performed by AJJ:
2. A person who knocks.
   • He was a loud knocker. Despite my usual timidity, after a bit I opened the door. - 1963, Patrick Anderson, The Character Ball: Chapters of Autobiography, page 220:
3. A critic; one who disparages.
   • "I try to give everybody credit," declared the old man. "I am not a knocker. I am not too good for this world." - 1947, Saul Bellow, The Victim:
4. A person who knocks (denigrates) something.
5. A person's breast, especially if large.
6. A dwarf, goblin, or sprite imagined to dwell in mines and to indicate the presence of ore by knocking.
7. A mechanical device in a pinball table that produces a loud percussive noise.
   • A good game needs color, lights, bells, gongs, and knockers, all to assure the player he is making progress[…] - 1963, Harper's magazine, volume 226:
8. 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. A large, boulder-shaped outcrop of bedrock in an otherwise low-lying landscape, chiefly associated with a mélange.
11. One who defaults on payment of a wager.
    • To the consternation of those who believed that bookies were 'knockers' (defaulters), he paid his losses with alacrity […] - 2004, Carl Chinn, Better Betting with a Decent Feller, page 48:
12. A gun.
    • Lay down on that 'Tussin, I think I'ma snooze (Like, like what?) We keep knockers like this shit essential .22 long rifles, these bullets like pencils Homicide, bodies drop when we bend through - 2021 March 18,...
    • Last opper we caught had to pop 'em, shouldn't've left out his crib without knockers - 2022 February 22, “Keep a Blixky” (track 10, 1:05 from the start), in The Blixky Tape 2 (Deluxe):
    • Dotty my holster, totin on this knocker (Grrah, grrah) If we see the'Ds, bitch, move proper - 2022 October 31, “Doomsday” (track 7, 1:53 from the start), in Kay Flock (lyrics), F L O C K A: