knocking shop (plural knocking shops)

1. (chiefly, Australia, Britain, New Zealand, slang) A brothel.
   • 1945, Evelyn Waugh, “Epilogue”, in Brideshead Revisited […], 3rd edition, London: Chapman & Hall, OCLC 54130892 ↗, page 300 ↗:

     [A]lways reminds me of one of the costlier knocking-shops, you know—'Maison Japonaise' …

   • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 1:

     Bloody nonsense, "All come together"... Sounds like the motto of a knocking shop in Marrakesh.

   • 2016, Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Liveright, p. 30:

     [It] had made Mick's heart soar, if only briefly, at the thought that he and Alma might outlive the monster breeze blocks that were used to smash their home ground into crack dens, knocking shops and a despairing dust that settled everywhere on people's heartstrings.