"on one's hands and knees" meaning in English

See on one's hands and knees in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} on one's hands and knees, {{en-PP}} on one's hands and knees
  1. With one's body bent over so that the knees and palms of the hands are touching the floor. Related terms: on one's knees, on all fours Translations (Translations): carponi (Italian)
    Sense id: en-on_one's_hands_and_knees-en-prep_phrase-dGLNBnlB Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for on one's hands and knees meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "on one's hands and knees",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "on one's hands and knees",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1945 January and February, “Notes and News: Locomotive Firing with Turf”, in Railway Magazine, page 46",
          "text": "[…] the fireman has to divide his time between getting up into the bunker to throw more turfs into the cab, and getting down on his hands and knees to get it into the firebox, and even then a reserve supply of turf must be carried on a truck behind the engine, and stops must be made on each steep ascent to raise more steam.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 30, in Nick, New York, Boston, London: Little, Brown and Company, page 159",
          "text": "He would walk and rage and drag the steel pole and the wagon and he would drink what anyone would give him and his place as the tragic figure of Frenchtown was coalesced after he was seen on his hands and knees lapping at a puddle to rid his throat of the whiskey burn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "With one's body bent over so that the knees and palms of the hands are touching the floor."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_one's_hands_and_knees-en-prep_phrase-dGLNBnlB",
      "links": [
        [
          "bent over",
          "bend over"
        ],
        [
          "knee",
          "knee"
        ],
        [
          "palm",
          "palm"
        ],
        [
          "hand",
          "hand"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "on one's knees"
        },
        {
          "word": "on all fours"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "carponi"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "on one's hands and knees"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "on one's hands and knees",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "on one's hands and knees",
      "name": "en-PP"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "on one's knees"
    },
    {
      "word": "on all fours"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1945 January and February, “Notes and News: Locomotive Firing with Turf”, in Railway Magazine, page 46",
          "text": "[…] the fireman has to divide his time between getting up into the bunker to throw more turfs into the cab, and getting down on his hands and knees to get it into the firebox, and even then a reserve supply of turf must be carried on a truck behind the engine, and stops must be made on each steep ascent to raise more steam.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 30, in Nick, New York, Boston, London: Little, Brown and Company, page 159",
          "text": "He would walk and rage and drag the steel pole and the wagon and he would drink what anyone would give him and his place as the tragic figure of Frenchtown was coalesced after he was seen on his hands and knees lapping at a puddle to rid his throat of the whiskey burn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "With one's body bent over so that the knees and palms of the hands are touching the floor."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bent over",
          "bend over"
        ],
        [
          "knee",
          "knee"
        ],
        [
          "palm",
          "palm"
        ],
        [
          "hand",
          "hand"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "carponi"
    }
  ],
  "word": "on one's hands and knees"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.