Knockoff: From Fake to Fabric

To most of us, a knockoff is a cheap imitation: a knockoff handbag, a knockoff designer watch. The word carries the sense of something shoddy made to deceive, a copy struck off quickly to profit from a real brand's reputation.

In textile production, a knockoff is nothing like that. It is a precision device mounted on a knitting machine, typically a metal finger or blade that sits just below the working needles. As the machine cycles, the knockoff engages the finished loops of yarn and pulls them off the needles in a controlled manner. Without it, completed stitches would jam on the needle shafts and the machine would stall. The knockoff is essential mechanical work, not counterfeit at all.

The device gets its name from the verb: to knock off means to remove or dislodge. In knitting, that is literal. The knockoff knocks the loop off the needle. The metaphor is direct and honest. It describes the action, nothing more.

Somewhere in the twentieth century, knockoff acquired its slang meaning of counterfeit goods. The theory is that such goods were made quickly, knocked off hastily to undersell legitimate products. The industrial term, already in use on the factory floor, may have lent the language for the slur, or the two senses may have arisen independently. Either way, the knitting machine knockoff remains a working component, indifferent to the reputation the word gained elsewhere.