knock oneself out
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to try very hard or go to great lengths to do something
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
cố gắng rất nhiều hoặc đi đến mọi chiều dài để làm việc gì
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: hit oneself repeatedly
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
You can knock yourself out trying to fix it, but I think it's broken beyond repair
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “knock oneself out” mean?
to try very hard or go to great lengths to do something Literally: hit oneself repeatedly
Is “knock oneself out” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.