knuckle
/ˈnʌkəl/ noun, verb
Forms knuckles knuckling knuckled
- noun Any of the joints between the bones of the fingers.
- noun (by extension) A mechanical joint.
- noun (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The curved part of the cushion at the entrance to the pockets on a cue sports table.
- noun The kneejoint of a quadruped, especially of a calf; formerly, the kneejoint of a human being.
- noun A cut of meat of various kinds. “Beef knuckle is from the knee joint. Pork knuckle, or ham hock, is from the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the leg.”
- noun (obsolete) The joint of a plant.
- noun (shipbuilding) A convex portion of a vessel's figure where a sudden change of shape occurs, as in a canal boat, where a nearly vertical side joins a nearly flat bottom.
- noun A contrivance, usually of brass or iron, and furnished with points, worn to protect the hand, to add force to a blow, and to disfigure the person struck; a knuckle duster. “brass knuckles”
- verb (transitive) To apply pressure, or rub or massage with one's knuckles (noun sense 1). “He knuckled the sleep from his eyes.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To strike or punch.
- verb (intransitive) To bend the fingers.
- verb (intransitive) To touch one's forehead as a mark of respect.
- verb (intransitive, figurative) To yield.
- verb (snowboarding, skiing) To land on the knuckle (noun sense 9) of a curve of a slope, after a jump off a ramp that precedes the slope.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English knokel (“finger joint”), from Old English cnucel (“the juncture of two bones; knuckle; joint”), from Proto-West Germanic *knukil, from Proto-Germanic *knukilaz (“knuckle, knot, bump”), as *knukô (“bone, joint”) + *-ilaz (diminutive suffix). Cognate with Dutch knokkel (“knuckle”), Low German Knökel (“knuckle”), German Knöchel (“ankle, knuckle”), Old Norse knykill. More at knock.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The joint of a finger, particularly when made prominent by the closing of the fingers. Davenant.
- noun The kneejoint, or middle joint, of either leg of a quadruped, especially of a calf; --formerly used of the kneejoint of a human being.
- verb To yield; to submit; --used with down, to, or under. To knuckle to. (a) To submit to in a contest; to yield to. [Colloq.] See To knock under, under Knock, v. i. (b) To apply one's self vigorously or earnestly to; as, to knuckle to work. [Colloq.]
- verb To beat with the knuckles; to pommel. [R.] Horace Smith.
Etymology [OE. knokel, knokil, AS. cuncel; akin to D. knokkel, OFries. knokele, knokle, G. knöchel, Sw. knoge, Dan. knokkel, G. knochen bone, and perh. to E. knock.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “knuckle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details