Talk:knee

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I moved this material from WP a couple of days ago.

  • The verb to knee, known since 1896, means to strike someone with the knee. Hence a knee is also such a blow, as permitted in various martial arts. Both apply especially to a painfull hit in the groin, generally considered unfair, also in most fight sports.
  • A knee is also a term used in shipbuilding to refer to an L-shaped piece of wood, used to strengthen the joint between the sides of a wooden ship and the deck.
  • The expression over the knee means in position (exposed buttocks up) for a spanking, but though this can be over one knee (the legs spread), it is most often said, in fact incorrectly, when the spankee is over the lap (both upper legs) of the spanker.
    • Also used figuratively for any 'vulnerable' or exposed position, physical or other.
    • The expression to put over the knee means to give a spanking, or be extension to give any kind of trashing, physical or other.

In the course of further research, i am struck by similar wording under knee in Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd ed, 2000. I am completely unfamiliar with W'ary's copyvio stds, so i've used the WP {{copyvio}} tag to announce my suspicion, as i would on WP and without the removal of defs that the W'ary tmplt implies. I leave it to the obviously diligent editors here to put things into good order for both the short & long terms.
--Jerzy·t 17:34, 31 August 2005 (UTC) Sig touchup --Jerzy·t 19:27, 31 August 2005 (UTC) [reply]

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/weak+at+the+knees --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RFD discussion: October 2022–June 2023[edit]

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.


"(with the verb "take") An act of kneeling on one knee, typically to acknowledge an injury or sacrifice or otherwise to show respect. After Kyle went down hard on the ice, both teams took a knee as he was carried off on a stretcher." — This is always in the expression take a knee, which has its own entry. So it should be listed as a derived term, not a sense of its own, I think. Equinox 15:54, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 23:19, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – yes, could also be RFV, because “to take a knee” means primarily to put the knee forward etc. with some implications of what this could mean but not the act of kneeling itself, so this only works if found outside this phrase, which we have as “An act of kneeling, especially to show respect or courtesy” which makes this sense redundant so we should have a combination at least. “A blow made with the knee” should also be deleted for the same reason, @Equinox. If I gave the dog food it does not mean “food” means “eating” or “feeding”. Fay Freak (talk) 12:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Fay Freak: I'm not totally convinced that "a blow made..." should be deleted. We have the example where "Winnie gave him a knee to the jaw". This wouldn't otherwise necessarily suggest a "punch" or violent action. (Suppose I said "I gave Bob a chin to the leg." We imagine that two body parts make contact, but there isn't a suggestion of aggression.) However: if you dislike that sense, please challenge it separately. Equinox 09:53, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Equinox: I am not convinced either. The consideration or argument was to be made though. It is difficult to think of examples where this sense is totally necessary by reason of not being used with verbs implying movement, impact or attraction like “give” or “get”, thus containing the notion of a “blow” or similar already in the environing words, which makes this kind of an optional sense. Fay Freak (talk) 12:40, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
RFD-deleted - clear and longstanding consensus to delete. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:13, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]