Definition of "knockabout" []

• Boisterous; rowdy. (adjective)
• Appropriate for rough wear or use: a knockabout overcoat. (adjective)
• A small sloop with a mainsail, jib, and keel but no bowsprit. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Sir Alex Ferguson's side a real end of term knockabout feel and even less incentive for the neutral to tune in tonight."
• "The vaudeville act of "The Fighting Keatons" concentrated almost completely on the category known as knockabout farce."
• "There was another called a knockabout - (I am not very good on these things but apparently a knockabout knows every machine in the shop) and they tell me they were coming back to start training women in Canada with the same high hopes, and I am sure those hopes will be carried out, and the women of Canada will be as good as the women of England."