TO BE KNOCKED INTO A COCKED HAT, verbal phr. (common).—To be limp enough to be doubled up and carried flat under the arm [like the COCKED HAT of an officer.]
ENGLISH SYNONYMS. To be doubled up; knocked into the middle of next week; spifflicated; beaten to a jelly; knocked a-cock; wiped out; sent all of a heap; bottled up; settled; to get beans, or snuff; sent, done, or smashed to smithereens, etc.—See also TAN, TANNING, and WIPE.
FRENCH SYNONYMS. Effondrer quelqu’un (popular: literally ‘to dig into one’; effondrer une volaille = to draw a fowl); tatouiller quelqu’un (popular: tatouiller is a slang term for a thrashing); soigner quelqu’un (popular: properly ‘to take care of,’ or ‘to attend,’ ‘to nurse’); se faire écharpiller (popular); déboulonner la colonne à quelqu’un (popular); décarcasser quelqu’un (popular); manger le nez à quelqu’un (popular: literally ‘to eat one’s nose’).
1870. Daily Telegraph, 20 Aug., ‘Speech of Mr. Ralph Harrison at the Crystal Palace.’ The publication of the Morning Star on March 17, 1856, it was prophesied, would knock the Daily Telegraph into A COCKED HAT.
1877. C. READE, The Jilt, I., in Belgravia, March, 59. I never knew a Welsh girl yet who couldn’t dance an Englishman into A COCKED HAT.
1881. HAWLEY SMART, The Great Tontine, ch. xxx. I think now we may consider Bob Pegram’s marriage as knocked pretty well into A COCKED HAT.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Sept., p. 2, col. 3. You give in the Pall Mall of to-night three translations of Plato’s well-known epigram. Permit me to give you another which in my opinion KNOCKS all THE REST INTO A COCKED HAT.
Also in the moral sense to be amazed to stupefaction and speechlessness.
