knee
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "knee", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "knee" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "knee" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
knee is aEnglishnoun. It means: In humans, the joint or the region of the joint in the middle part of the leg between the thigh and the shank. Pronounced /niː/. It ranks #4,098 in English word frequency. Often confused with kno and know.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | knee |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /niː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,098 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for knee is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /niː/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,098 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for knee, with forms such as "kene", "kknee", and "kne". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "kno", "know", "knew", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English kne, from Old English cnēow, from Proto-West Germanic *kneu, from Proto-Germanic *knewą, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵnéw-o-m, a thematic derivative of *ǵónu. See also West Frisian knibbel, Low German Knee, Knie, Dutch knie, German Knie, D… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is knee, spelled K-N-E-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1In humans, the joint or the region of the joint in the middle part of the leg between the thigh and the shank.
- 2In the horse and allied animals, the carpal joint, corresponding to the wrist in humans.
- 3In birds:
- 4In birds:
- 5The part of a garment that covers the knee.
- 6A piece of timber or metal formed with an angle somewhat in the shape of the human knee when bent.
- 7An act of kneeling, especially to show respect or courtesy.
- 8Any knee-shaped item or sharp angle in a line; an inflection point.
- 9A blow made with the knee; a kneeing.
- 10The presence of a parent etc., where a young child acquires early knowledge.
Etymology
From Middle English kne, from Old English cnēow, from Proto-West Germanic *kneu, from Proto-Germanic *knewą, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵnéw-o-m, a thematic derivative of *ǵónu. See also West Frisian knibbel, Low German Knee, Knie, Dutch knie, German Knie, Danish knæ, Norwegian kne, Swedish knä; also Hittite 𒄀𒉡 (genu), Latin genū, Tocharian A kanweṃ (dual), Tocharian B kenī, Ancient Greek γόνυ (gónu, “knee”), γωνία (gōnía, “corner, angle”), Welsh glin (“knee”), Old Armenian ծունր (cunr), Avestan 𐬲𐬥𐬎𐬨 (žnum), Sanskrit जानु (jā́nu). The obsolete plural kneen is from Middle English kneen, knen, kneon, kneuwene.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: kene,kknee,kne,knnee,nkee
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for knee
Misspelling Variants of "knee"
Frequency rank: #4,098 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter K in our English index: