Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
UK Vereinigtes Königreich Großbritannien und Nordirland, Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord, Regno Unito di Gran Bretagna e Irlanda del Nord, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (esper.) Britujo
kn-Wörter

"§"
canoodle
knutschen
zerknüllen
knuddeln
Knoten
knot
kn-Wörter
Knopf
Knabe
Knubbel
Knüppel
Knorren
Knirps
(W3)

2007-10-10: Search Results: ADS-L: 15 matches.

Item # Date Time Recs Subject

• 027333 02/11/16 04:53 42 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027327 02/11/15 16:30 41 Re: "shyster" in American Periodical Series Online
• 027321 02/11/15 11:39 27 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027318 02/11/15 11:07 18 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027314 02/11/15 10:32 36 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027313 02/11/15 10:05 24 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027317 02/11/15 08:02 53 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027308 02/11/14 23:40 29 American Periodical Series online; Scampi(1883?) & Bagel(1908?)
• 027306 02/11/14 19:05 32 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027294 02/11/14 18:24 23 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027281 02/11/14 12:05 15 Re: Canoodle: odds and ends
• 027271 02/11/14 08:25 86 Canoodle: odds and ends
• 026934 02/11/01 05:33 25 Re: Canoodle--bibliographic reference
• 026929 02/10/31 21:37 19 Canoodle--bibliographic reference
• 026891 02/10/31 02:15 23 'circulation-goosing' - new term?

"§"
kn-
kn-Words
(W3)

• engl. "cn-, oengl."
• engl. "cnafa, oengl."
• engl. "cnedan, oengl."
• engl. "cneo, oengl."
• engl. "cneow, oengl."
• engl. "cnif, oengl."
• engl. "cniht, oengl."
• engl. "cnotta, oengl."
• engl. "cnull, welsh"
• engl. "cnyll, oengl."
• engl. "cnyttan, oengl."
• engl. "gnarl"
• engl. "gnarled"
• engl. "gnat"
• engl. "gnatter, engl. mundartl."
• engl. "Gordian knot"
• engl. "knack"
• engl. "knacker"
• engl. "knackered"
• engl. "knackwurst"
• engl. "knap"
• engl. "knapper"
• engl. "knapping"
• engl. "knapsack"
• engl. "knar, oengl."
• engl. "knave"
• engl. "knead"
• engl. "knee"
• engl. "kneel"
• engl. "knell"
• engl. "Knesset, yidd."
• engl. "knick-knack"
• engl. "knickerbocker"
• engl. "knickerbockers"
• engl. "knickers"
• engl. "knickknack"
• engl. "knife"
• engl. "knight"
• engl. "knish, yidd."
• engl. "knit"
• engl. "knob"
• engl. "knock"
• engl. "knockwurst"
• engl. "knoll"
• engl. "knop"
• engl. "knot"
• engl. "knotgrass"
• engl. "knothole"
• engl. "knout"
• engl. "know"
• engl. "knowledge"
• engl. "knuckle"
• engl. "knurl"
• engl. "knurled"
• engl. "knurling"
• engl. "neck"
• engl. "nodal"
• engl. "node"

Kn- Words in English

By Maeve Maddox

A teaching site offers this rule for dealing with "silent k": "k" is often silent before "n".

An easier way to retain this information is to forget about "silent k" altogether. In a word like "knot", "k" is not "a silent letter" at all, but part of the distinct phonogram "kn".

The symbol "kn" is just another way to spell the sound /n/.

The spelling "kn" in a word like "knave" evolved from the Old English spelling "cn", in which the "c" represented a guttural sound similar to the sound /k/. For example, the OE words from which our words "knight", "knot", and "knave" have evolved were spelled "cniht", "cnotta", and "cnafa" and pronounced with a hard first sound. The guttural sound eventually dropped out, leaving only the /n/ sound, but the old spelling has survived in "kn".

Here are some familiar "kn words".

"knapsack" | "knave" | "knead" | "knee" | "kneel" | "knell" | "know" | "knickknack" | "knife" | "knight" | "knit" | "knob" | "knock" | "knoll" | "knotgrass" | "knothole" | "knowledge" | "knuckle"

Here are some more "kn words" that may not be as familiar:

"knacker" (noun): One whose trade it is to buy worn out, diseased, or useless horses, and slaughter them for their hides and hoofs, and for making dog’s-meat. Ex. “Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds.” (Animal Farm, George Orwell)

"knackered" (adjective): exhausted. “After shopping with Mum, we were knackered.”

"knickerbockers" (noun): loose-fitting breeches, gathered in at the knee, and worn by boys, sportsmen, and others who require a freer use of their limbs. Ex. “The child…was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings.” (Daisy Miller, Henry James)

"knickers" (noun): underpants worn by women and children. The word is a back-formation of "knickerbockers". It’s commonly heard in the idiom, “to get one’s knickers in a twist” (i.e., “become upset”).

"knackwurst" (noun): a type of German sausage. Also spelled "knockwurst".

"knout" (noun): a kind of whip or scourge, very severe and often fatal in its effects. Ex. “The knout along with the gulag are Russia’s enduring shrines of torment.”

"knurl" (noun): a small protuberance, excrescence, or "knob".

"knurled" (adjective): having knurls wrought on the edge or surface.

"Knurling" is a process of impressing a diamond-shaped or straight-line pattern into the surface of a work piece by using specially shaped hardened metal wheels. Ex. “Walnut Knurled Guitar Knob.” “Solid walnut knurled legs on table and chairs.”

Two foreign borrowings, "Knesset" and "knish", do not belong to the category of words spelled with the phonogram "kn". They are spelled with the phonogram "k"; the sound /k/ is pronounced at the beginning of these words.

"Knesset" (noun): The parliament of the State of Israel. The word derives from a Hebrew word meaning “a gathering.” Ex. “On July 11, 1995 this problem was raised for discussion in the Knesset finance committee.”

"knish" (noun): A dumpling of flaky dough filled with chopped liver, potato, or cheese, and baked or fried. The word comes from a Yiddish word derived from a Russian word meaning “a kind of cake.” Ex. “Gabila’s Knishes: Home of the Coney Island Square Knish.”
...

"kn-", Middle English spelling of a common Germanic consonant-cluster (in Old English it was graphed as "cn-"; see "K"). The sound it represented persists in most of the sister languages, but in English it was reduced to "n-" in standard pronunciation by 1750, after about a century of weakening and fading. It was fully voiced in Old and Middle English.

"K", eleventh Roman letter, from Greek "kappa", from Phoenician "kaph" or a similar Semitic source, said to mean literally "hollow of the hand" and to be so called for its shape.

Little used in classical Latin, which at an early age conformed most of its words (the exceptions had ritual importance) to a spelling using "-c-" (a character derived from Greek "gamma"). In Late Latin, pronunciation of "-c-" shifted (in the direction of "s"). Greek names brought into Latin also were regularized with a "-c-" spelling, and then underwent the Late Latin sound-shift; hence the modern pronunciation of "Cyrus", "Circe". To keep their pronunciation clear, the many Greek words (often Church words) that entered Latin after this shift tended to take Latin "-k-" for Greek "kappa".

"K-" thus became a supplementary letter to "-c-" in Medieval Latin, used with Greek and foreign words. But most of the languages descended from Latin had little need of it, having evolved other solutions to the sound shifts.

"K-" also was scarce in Old English. After the Norman conquest, new scribal habits restricted "-c-" and expanded the use of "-k-", which began to be common in English spelling from 13c. This probably was done because the sound value of "-c-" was evolving in French and the other letter was available to clearly mark the "k" sound for scribes working in English. For more, see "C".

In words transliterated from Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Japanese, Hawaiian, etc., it represents several different sounds lumped. In modern use some of them are now with "kh-"; in older borrowings they often followed traditional English spelling and were written with a "C-" ("Corea", "Caaba", etc.).

As a symbol for "potassium" [dt. "Kalium"], it represents Latin "kalium" "potash". In "CMYK" as a color system for commercial printing it means "black" but seems to stand for "key" in a specialized printing sense. Slang meaning "one thousand dollars" is 1970s, from "kilo-". "K" as a measure of capacity (especially in computer memory) meaning "one thousand" also is an abbreviation of "kilo-".

As an indication of "strikeout" in baseball score-keeping it dates from 1874 and is said to represent the last letter of "struck". The invention of the scorecard symbols is attributed to English-born U.S. newspaperman Henry Chadwick (1824-1908) principally of the old New York "Clipper", who had been writing baseball since 1858, and who explained it thus:

Smith was the first striker, and went out on three strikes, which is recorded by the figure "1" for the first out, and the letter "K" to indicate how put out, "K" being the last letter of the word "struck". The letter "K" is used in this instance as being easier to remember in connection with the word struck than "S", the first letter, would be. [Henry Chadwick, "Chadwick's Base Ball Manual," London, 1874]

"C", third letter of the alphabet. Alphabetic writing came to Rome via the southern Etruscan "Caeretan" script, in which "gamma" was written as a crescent. Early Romans made little use of Greek "kappa" and used "gamma" for both the "g" and "k" sounds, the latter more frequently, so that the "k" sound came to be seen as the proper one for "gamma". To restore a dedicated symbol for the "g" sound, a modified "gamma" was introduced c. 250 B.C.E. as "G". In classical Latin "-c-" has only the value "k", and thus it passed to Celtic and, via Irish monks, to Anglo-Saxon, where "-k-" was known but little used.

In Old French, many "k" sounds drifted to "ts" and by 13c., "s", but still were written with a "-c-". Thus the 1066 invasion brought to the English language a more vigorous use of "-k-" and a flood of French and Latin words in which "-c-" represented "s" (as in "cease", "ceiling", "circle"). By 15c. native English words with "-s-" were being respelled with "-c-" for "s" (as in "ice", "mice", "lice"). In some words from Italian, meanwhile, the "-c-" has a "ch" sound (a sound evolution in Italian that parallels the Old French one). In German, "-c-" in loanwords was regularized to "-k-" or "-z-" (depending on pronunciation) in the international spelling reform of 1901, which was based on the Duden guide of 1880.

Friday, August 3rd

knead

Hands-On Word of the Day:

English words that begin with "kn-" share the qualities of being ancient - most go back to Old English - and of having cognates in Germanic languages. "Knead" is one such word, which appeared in Old English with the same meaning it has today: work something with the hands, such as dough. "Knead" wasn't always a homophone of "need"; In days of yore the initial consonant was pronounced, as it still is in German in words that begin "kn".

"§"
Knife and Fork
Nelson knife
dig one's grave with a knife and fork
like eating soup with a fork
knife and fork man
to play a good knife and fork
knife-and-forker
knork - knife and fork
spork - spoon and fork
(W3)

August 10, 2021

“The best way to cut carbs is with a knife and fork”
...

July 9, 2018

“Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork” is a food saying that has been printed on many images.
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February 17, 2015

“Too many people do weightlifting with the wrong equipment - a knife and fork”

“WISH I’D SAID THAT: Too many Americans go in for weight-lifting with the wrong equipment—a knife and fork” was in the “Earl’s Pearl’s” segment of entertainment reporter Earl Wilson’s syndicated newspaper column on October 31, 1960. Wilson did not credit anyone with the quote.

The quote was credited to American actor Hal Holbrook in a newspaper published on December 8, 1960.
...

Green’s Dictionary of Slang

"knife and fork" n.

1896 [Aus] West Australian (Perth) 29 May 6/2:

This adoption of the rhyming slang was, I think, only put on to try to impress me of his ’cuteness. He was surprised to find I understood every word. ‘You “rumble” the "knife and fork" very well, sonnie’.

"knife and fork man" (n.) - (US) a hearty eater.

1947 [US] J. O’Hara ‘The Heart of Lee W. Lee’ in New Yorker 13 Sept. 29/2: ‘You know this Al Hitchcock that they recently signed. They tell me he’s quite an eater. Quite a knife-and-fork man’.

knife and fork, noun

• 1) British : one that eats : trencherman - a good knife and fork
• 2 a) knives and forks plural
• (1) : paired and solitary cones of the common club moss (Lycopodium clavatum)
• (2) : a club moss that bears knives and forks
• 2 b) : a key fruit of the sycamore maple —usually used in plural

Limericks on dig one's grave with a knife and fork

...
In most cases, you need a spoon to eat soup. Eating it with a "knife and fork" would not work as well. In fact, when a way of doing something does not work, we can say it is "like eating soup with a fork". In other words, it is the wrong tool for the job.
...

...
The phrase "to play a good knife and fork" means "to eat heartily".
...
The phrase "to play a good knife and fork" gave rise to the nouns "knife-and-fork man" and "knife-and-forker", which designate one who plays a good knife and fork, a hearty eater.
...

...
2.2-: From “The Referee’s” Page for Bowlers, by ‘Boomerang’, published in The Referee (Sydney, New South Wales) of Thursday 22nd April 1937:

Daily you meet the man who tells you that if he took a drink out of an open tap the only worm in the reservoir would pass down his throat, or that if it were raining pea soup he would have a "knife and fork" in his hand at the time.
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2.4-: From Railway Review, published in the Greenough Sun (Mullewa, Western Australia) of Thursday 14th September 1950:

If it was raining pea soup young Tommy Mason would have a "knife and fork" fair dinkum! Tommy had only just returned to work after one accident received playing football when he goes and collects again playing the national game. His latest misfortune is a broken collar bone and he will be unfit for work for at least two months.
...

1. Turns of Phrase: "Knork"

It's a combination "knife and fork", whose integration has led to the creation of this infelicitous term, surely the greatest barrier to its adoption (though the name of the combined "spoon and fork", the "spork", is almost equally off-putting). The term suddenly appeared all over the British press during October and early November 2007 as the result of a survey of our eating habits by the supermarket chain Sainsbury's.

Because meals are now so informal, often eaten on the sofa in front of the television, traditional cutlery is too much hassle. The survey reported that 11% of 18- to 34-year-olds did away with knives and used a fork as an all-in-one eating tool. The survey called this a "knork", but it's merely an improvised tool, not a true knork. The real one is an American invention of 2003 by a young entrepreneur named Mike Miller, whose UK sales prospects have had a wonderful PR boost as a result of the survey. His "knork" is of stainless-steel, with an enlarged handle for gripping and outer tines bevelled into a curved shape to help it cut foods. The word is, of course, said with the initial "k" silent, as in "knife".

* York Press, 12 Nov. 2007: People - and when I say "people", I actually mean idiots like me in the media - are already claiming that the "knork" will "destroy divisive cutlery hierarchies and erode social distinctions" which, I think, means that us commoners won't feel like proper berks anymore when we don't know our shrimp fork from a tuning fork at dinner parties.

* Scotland on Sunday, 27 Oct. 2007: Just 19% of the population now use a knife, fork and spoon at dinner time, with many opting for a "knork" - a fork that, transferred to the right hand, doubles as a knife, as they balance plates on their knees in front of the television.