English

Noun

knockback ‎(plural knockbacks)

1. A blow that causes the recipient to fall or move backwards, a knock back; a recoil.
   • 2006, Kelley Armstrong, Broken, unnumbered page,

     He lifted his hand in a knockback spell, which would send me sailing right into the zombie.

2. Something that impedes or reverses progress; a setback.
   • 2011, Lee Hobin, God, Why Are You Being So Cruel?, page 188,

     […] the chemo had not worked and had gone back into his brain. […] He had knockback after knockback. It would have taken its toll on anyone.

3. (Britain, Australia, informal) A rejection; a refusal.

   He got a few knockbacks today when he tried to give his resume out at the local shops.

   • 1987, Rupert Lockwood, War on the Waterfront: Menzies, Japan, and the Pig-Iron Dispute, page 199,

     The only other knockback in the Port Kembla-Wollongong district was from Benny Westwood of the Advance Tyre Service. He, too, ordered us off the premises.

   • 1995, Heather Hogarth, Your First Job: Getting It, Keeping It, and Going Further, MacMillan Education Australia, page 82,

     So you′ve had a knockback. All right, we don′t all get the first job we apply for.

   • 2010, Chris Rau, Dealing With the Media: A Handbook for Students, Activists, Community Groups and Anyone Who Can′t Afford a Spin Doctor, page 3,

     They asked matter-of-fact questions about harrowing tales that the victims had been trying to tell other media outlets, only to receive knockback after knockback for more than a year.

   • 2010, Tony Parsons, Tony Parsons on Life, Death and Breakfast, unnumbered page,

     Nicole Kidman got a knockback because Su-Man was too busy whipping a certain Oscar-winning French actress into shape.