Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bommy-knocker.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Meaning a large club or mallet. I'm told this word was invented by the child of one of my cousins. But I like it :-)

    November 10, 2007

  • This is in widespread use amongst children.

    November 10, 2007

  • I don't think I have enough children to verify that! Even with alternative spellings I couldn't find any dictionary references at all.

    November 12, 2007

  • I remember hearing it all the time when I was a kid. It referred to those small round brown spiked ball things that fell from trees.

    December 10, 2007

  • Bommy Knocker is a giant spiked club, that the title character in the book "The Hungry Giant's Soup" by Joy Cowley would threaten the villagers with if they didn't make him soup. That was the first time I remember hearing it.

    April 20, 2009

  • I bought a fearsome-looking ceremonial (or not) wooden club in the Solomon Islands in 1998 which I still own. A year or so later and certainly no later than 2000, when living in Queensland Australia, my then about 7 year old son referred to it as a "bommy-knocker". I thought that he had invented the word, as others appear to have thought their children have too, so it appears most likely that "it is in widespread use amongst children" and has been for more than 10 years now (2010). Whether Joy Cowley originated the word in her 1993 book, I can't comment. It is certainly an interesting word!

    August 5, 2010

  • *makes soup for Gareth*

    August 5, 2010