knuckle

NUK-uhl/ˈnʌkəl/

15 meanings of knuckle

1
nouncountable
Any of the joints connecting the bones of the fingers.
The boxer's knuckles were bruised after the long fight.
A swollen knuckle made bending the finger painful.
Note
The bodily sense the rest of the word grows from. Old English cnucel meant "the juncture of two bones", and it was built from a Germanic word for "bone, joint" plus a diminutive suffix. A knuckle is therefore a "little joint", and the older Germanic form could also mean a knot or bump. Machines, boat hulls and ski slopes later borrowed the word for that same small, hard bend.
2
nouncountable
A cut of meat of various kinds, typically from around a joint of the animal.
The recipe calls for a veal knuckle simmered for several hours.
He braised a pork knuckle until the meat fell off the bone.
Similarhock, shank
Note
What a knuckle of meat means depends on the animal. Beef knuckle comes from the knee joint. Pork knuckle comes from lower down, at the joint just above the pig's foot, and is the same cut many cooks know as ham hock. Read a recipe carefully, because the two names can appear interchangeably on menus and labels.
3
nouncountable
A device, usually of brass or iron and fitted with points, worn over the hand to protect it, add force to a blow, and disfigure the person struck.
The bouncer took a set of brass knuckles off a man at the door before the fight could start.
Police seized several sets of iron knuckles during the raid.
Note
The weapon is named for where it sits, across the knuckles of a closed fist. It is almost always met in the plural, with its metal named: brass knuckles. Knuckle duster is the same object under another name. Saying simply "knuckles" for the weapon works only when the context already makes the metal clear.
4
verbslangtransitive
To strike or punch someone.
The sailor threatened to knuckle anyone who mocked him.
She knuckled her attacker square in the jaw.
Similarpunch, slug, sock, thump, hit
Note
This is fighting talk, at home in rough first-person storytelling. In Lenny McLean's The Guv'nor (2013), the narrator "knuckled him in the kidney as hard as I could hit." The person struck is the object, and "in" names the spot that was hit. It is slang, so in neutral writing punch or hit is the safer choice.
5
verbtransitive
To apply pressure to, rub, or massage something with one's knuckles.
The masseuse knuckled the knots along his spine.
Bakers often knuckle the dough to release trapped gas.
Similarknead, rub, massage
Note
A verb built directly on the finger joints, where the knuckles themselves do the work of pressing or rubbing. Its most idiomatic use is knuckle something from somewhere, as in he knuckled the sleep from his eyes, where the rubbing clears something away. Keep it apart from the punching sense. Here the knuckles move slowly and with steady pressure rather than landing a blow.
6
verbfigurativelyintransitive
To submit or give in, especially under pressure.
The committee refused to knuckle despite the public outcry.
Faced with mounting debt, the company eventually knuckled.
Similarsubmit, yield, cave, capitulate, succumb
Oppositeresist
Note
Giving in is where the verb is most often heard, and it is usually heard with "under": to knuckle under. The bare verb exists but is rare on its own. Writers who want the yielding sense almost always reach for the phrasal form, and it is the safer choice for a learner.
7
nouncountable
A connecting joint between parts of a machine, allowing the parts to pivot or move.
Engineers replaced the worn knuckle that connected the two steel arms.
The mechanism's knuckles allowed the panels to fold flat.
Similarjoint, hinge, pivot
8
verbintransitive
To bend or curl the fingers.
Her hands knuckled instinctively as she braced for the fall.
Climbers knuckle hard to keep a grip on tiny holds.
Similarclench, curl, flex
9
nouncountable
The knee joint of a four-legged animal, especially a calf; in former times, the knee joint of a person.
The vet treated an infection in the calf's knuckle.
Strain in the animal's knuckles slowed the whole herd.
Similarknee
Note
The human knee once shared this word. In Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid, a woman kneels "with wearie knockles". The old spelling and the kneeling both point to the knee, not the finger. That use is long gone, and today the word belongs to animals, calves above all. This is why it survives in butchery as the cut of meat.
10
verbintransitive
To touch one's forehead with the knuckles as a sign of respect.
The farmhands knuckled to the visiting gentry without a word.
Old sailors still knuckle to the captain out of habit.

11
nouncountable
A convex part of a vessel's hull where its shape changes sharply, as where a nearly vertical side meets a nearly flat bottom.
Shipwrights welded extra plating along the knuckle of the canal boat.
The hull's sharp knuckle made the vessel sit oddly in the water.
Note
To a shipbuilder, a knuckle is a corner where the hull might otherwise have had a curve. Seen in cross-section, it is an abrupt outward angle where one plane of the hull gives way to another, much like a bent finger joint seen from the side. Canal boats show it most plainly, since their flat bottoms and upright sides meet with almost no transition.
12
nouncountable
The rounded point on a ski slope where a flat section changes into a downward slope.
The freestyle skier cleared the knuckle and landed on the steeper pitch below.
Coming up short, he caught his board on the knuckle.
Note
On a jump, the ramp launches the rider over the flat, and the knuckle marks where the landing slope begins. Clearing it means touching down on the steep pitch. Falling short means meeting the rounded edge itself, a mistake common enough to have its own verb, to knuckle.
13
verbtransitive or intransitive
To land on the rounded transition point of a slope, where flat meets downhill, after jumping off a ramp above it.
She knuckled the landing and felt the jolt run through her knees.
If you slow down too much, you will knuckle just below the lip.
Note
Riders usually use this verb for a mistake rather than a move. Whoever knuckles has come up short and meets the rounded edge instead of the downslope. The impact is jarring, close to landing on flat ground. People say they knuckled a jump or knuckled the landing, and losing speed before takeoff is the usual cause.
14
nouncountable
The curved part of the cushion at the entrance to a pocket on a pool or snooker table.
The cue ball clipped the knuckle and stayed out of the corner pocket.
A precise shot can ride the knuckle straight into the pocket.
Note
On a cue-sports table, the shot is often decided at the mouth of the pocket. A ball that catches the rounded cushion beside the jaws can be turned away from the pocket or steered into it, depending on the angle it arrives at. Players speak of hitting the knuckle or riding it, and both are common in snooker and pool commentary.
15
nounobsolete
The joint or node of a plant, where a leaf or branch grows from the stem.
Gardeners trimmed each stem just above its lowest knuckle.
In the West Indies there are found, even in sandy deserts and very dry places, large canes, which at every joint or knuckle yield a good supply of fresh water
1623, Francis Bacon, The History of Dense and Rare
Note
Botanists once used this word where a modern writer would say joint or node. Francis Bacon, in The History of Dense and Rare (1623), describes canes that "at every joint or knuckle yield a good supply of fresh water." Pairing the two words shows they meant the same thing. Use it only when quoting or imitating older prose; in present-day plant description it will read as a mistake.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of knuckle apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Middle English knokel ("finger joint"), from Old English cnucel ("the juncture of two bones; joint"), going back through Proto-West Germanic to Proto-Germanic *knukilaz ("knuckle, knot, bump"). It is related to Dutch knokkel, German Knöchel ("ankle, knuckle"), and Old Norse knykill.