knuckle
IPA: nˈʌkʌɫ
noun
- Any of the joints between the bones of the fingers.
- (by extension) A mechanical joint.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The curved part of the cushion at the entrance to the pockets on a cue sports table.
- The kneejoint of a quadruped, especially of a calf; formerly, the kneejoint of a human being.
- A cut of meat of various kinds.
- (obsolete) The joint of a plant.
- (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.
- 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.
- (skiing, snowboarding) The rounded point where a flat changes to a slope on a piste.
verb
- (transitive) To apply pressure, or rub or massage with one's knuckles (sense 1).
- (transitive, slang) To strike or punch.
- (intransitive) To bend the fingers.
- (intransitive) To touch one's forehead as a mark of respect.
- (intransitive, figurative) To yield.
- (snowboarding, skiing) To land on the knuckle (sense 9) of a curve of a slope, after a jump off a ramp that precedes the slope.
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Examples of "knuckle" in Sentences
- (torn tissue in knuckle of left middle finger) is on the 15-day DL
- In the hindquarter if the knuckle is limp, and the part under the kidney smells slightly disagreeable, avoid it.
- Although a knuckle is likely to carry a wound now and then, Jim keeps his hands very clean and the nails neatly trimmed.
- Though it was well after midnight, everyone was hustled onto a bus for what she describes as a knuckle-biting three-hour trip to their scheduled destination.
- I rarely write anything out longhand anymore, but the middle finger of my left hand still has a life-long callous alongside the top knuckle from a pen or pencil grinding into it. stennieville fjpoblam
- Our "humble pie" is their "humble sandwich": people do actually use the expression "knuckle sandwich" to describe a punch here, and Obama's deal to raise the debt ceiling was unanimously panned as "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich".
- By walking upright over four million years ago, the earliest hominids were already on an evolutionary track separate from even chimps and gorillas, our nearest genetic cousins, who locomote with a different kind of gait known as knuckle-walking.
- It's so much a caricature of the Ugly American stereotype, has so many gaping holes and plain knuckle-headed bias in it that we assumed it was a joke, but since no Gotcha post from him follows (his post is dated June 12th), we are forced to assume he meant it.
- Of course they did not use what we call knuckle-dusters, nor did they even double their fists, except when moving round each other, and as "gloves" were unknown, they struck out with the hands half open, for they had no wish to bleed each other's noses or black each other's eyes for mere amusement.
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