"knock wood" meaning in English

See knock wood in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: knocks wood [present, singular, third-person], knocking wood [participle, present], knocked wood [participle, past], knocked wood [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} knock wood (third-person singular simple present knocks wood, present participle knocking wood, simple past and past participle knocked wood)
  1. Alternative form of knock on wood Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: knock on wood
    Sense id: en-knock_wood-en-verb-xzBadZCN Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for knock wood meaning in English (1.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "knocks wood",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocking wood",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocked wood",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocked wood",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "knock wood (third-person singular simple present knocks wood, present participle knocking wood, simple past and past participle knocked wood)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "knock on wood"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2013, Lesley Ann McDaniel, Big Sky Bachelor, page 55",
          "text": "It's in an ultranice neighborhood. Pretty close to your school and to the boutique where — knock wood — I think I'm going to be working.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of knock on wood"
      ],
      "id": "en-knock_wood-en-verb-xzBadZCN",
      "links": [
        [
          "knock on wood",
          "knock on wood#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "knock wood"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "knocks wood",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocking wood",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocked wood",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knocked wood",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "knock wood (third-person singular simple present knocks wood, present participle knocking wood, simple past and past participle knocked wood)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "knock on wood"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2013, Lesley Ann McDaniel, Big Sky Bachelor, page 55",
          "text": "It's in an ultranice neighborhood. Pretty close to your school and to the boutique where — knock wood — I think I'm going to be working.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of knock on wood"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "knock on wood",
          "knock on wood#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "knock wood"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.