knocked up

adj

"knocked-up" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“knocked up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pregnant, typically outside of marriage.

Corpus desk

Index EN-knocked-up · knocked up · English

knocked up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "K" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for knocked up
PropertyValue
Headwordknocked up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “knocked up” in English

knocked upranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

knocked up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Zero misspellings are on record for knocked up in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is knocked up, spelled K-N-O-C-K-E-D- -U-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    Pregnant, typically outside of marriage.
  2. 2
    Exhausted; worn out or used up.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how knocked up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. My name is Wendy and I first moved to New York when I was 21 to be a dancer, but I broke my big toe and then I got knocked up by this actor who dumped me to join the Peace Corps, so for the last 16 years I been raising my daughter all by myself and then two weeks ago, she tells me that she is a bisexual and that she hates me more than any person on this p…
  2. I ask him why she doesn't get on methadone while she's knocked up. He says because she not only uses heroin but she's a crystal meth head and a crack head to boot. She got knocked up by a John she picked up one night hooking.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "knocked up"?
"knocked up" is spelled K-N-O-C-K-E-D- -U-P.
What does "knocked up" mean?
As an adjective, "knocked up" means: Pregnant, typically outside of marriage.
What language does "knocked up" come from?
"knocked up" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list