"knuckle up" meaning in English

See knuckle up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: knuckles up [present, singular, third-person], knuckling up [participle, present], knuckled up [participle, past], knuckled up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} knuckle up (third-person singular simple present knuckles up, present participle knuckling up, simple past and past participle knuckled up)
  1. (informal, chiefly African-American Vernacular) To clench one's fist(s) as though in preparation for a fight. Tags: informal
    Sense id: en-knuckle_up-en-verb-SP3NGsYS Categories (other): African-American Vernacular English, English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs with particle (up) Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 58 42 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs with particle (up): 60 40
  2. (informal, by extension) To approach a problem aggressively. Tags: broadly, informal
    Sense id: en-knuckle_up-en-verb-f3vbb5vY

Download JSON data for knuckle up meaning in English (1.9kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "knuckles up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckling up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckled up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckled up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "knuckle up (third-person singular simple present knuckles up, present participle knuckling up, simple past and past participle knuckled up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "African-American Vernacular English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "58 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Vanessa Miller, Latter Rain",
          "text": "With a resolve to get his son away from these monsters, Isaac knuckled up and mean-mugged his opponent.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Pink Maxwell, A Scorpion's Sting, page 209",
          "text": "Tony stumbled a little and when he found his balance, he knuckled up and sent a jab toward Will's neck.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To clench one's fist(s) as though in preparation for a fight."
      ],
      "id": "en-knuckle_up-en-verb-SP3NGsYS",
      "qualifier": "chiefly African-American Vernacular",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, chiefly African-American Vernacular) To clench one's fist(s) as though in preparation for a fight."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "To approach a problem aggressively."
      ],
      "id": "en-knuckle_up-en-verb-f3vbb5vY",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, by extension) To approach a problem aggressively."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "knuckle up"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "knuckles up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckling up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckled up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "knuckled up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "knuckle up (third-person singular simple present knuckles up, present participle knuckling up, simple past and past participle knuckled up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "African-American Vernacular English",
        "English informal terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Vanessa Miller, Latter Rain",
          "text": "With a resolve to get his son away from these monsters, Isaac knuckled up and mean-mugged his opponent.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Pink Maxwell, A Scorpion's Sting, page 209",
          "text": "Tony stumbled a little and when he found his balance, he knuckled up and sent a jab toward Will's neck.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To clench one's fist(s) as though in preparation for a fight."
      ],
      "qualifier": "chiefly African-American Vernacular",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, chiefly African-American Vernacular) To clench one's fist(s) as though in preparation for a fight."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English informal terms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To approach a problem aggressively."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, by extension) To approach a problem aggressively."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "knuckle up"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (91e95e7 and db5a844). 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.