bare-knuckled
bare-knuckled is the simple past and past participle of bare-knuckle.
Adjective
bare-knuckled (comparative more bare-knuckled, superlative most bare-knuckled)
- Without boxing gloves
- Frank Slavin, who fought both bare-knuckled and gloved bouts, was the heavyweight champion of Australia and boxed in the United States, Canada and England.2000, Murray Phillips, From Sidelines to Centre Field, →ISBN
- Well, it's hard to knock a tough man cold with bare-knuckled head punches.2004, Robert E. Howard, Paul Herman, Waterfront Fists and Others, →ISBN
- Ruthlessly competitive
- His return – armed with a set peppered with Clash classics such as 'London Calling' and 'White Man In Hammersmith Palais' – had the old bare-knuckled punks from 1977 literally in tears.1999, Sue Welfare, Off the Record, →ISBN, page 279
- Recent electoral battles in the city had been closely contested, bare-knuckled affairs, each party routinely accusing the other of cheating.2007, Patrick G. Williams, Red River Valley: Beyond Redemption, →ISBN
Meaning of bare-knuckle
Verb
bare-knuckle (third-person singular simple present bare-knuckles, present participle bare-knuckling, simple past and past participle bare-knuckled)
- To box without boxing gloves.
- ...at 36 he is still able to bare-knuckle the swagger out of the biggest lumberjack in the Northwest.1964, Time - Volume 84, Part 1, page 88
- To attack or overpower ruthlessly.
- “I'm not surprised,” she said, “but your will is strong and your sense of humor is great. They ought to bare-knuckle almost any problem you do have.2008, Jay Bynum, Sallad Dayes, →ISBN, page 105
Forms of bare-knuckled
| comparative | more bare-knuckled |
|---|---|
| superlative | most bare-knuckled |
Questions about bare-knuckled
- What does bare-knuckled mean?
- Bare-knuckled means without boxing gloves.
- What is bare-knuckled the simple past and past participle of?
- Bare-knuckled is the simple past and past participle of bare-knuckle.
- What part of speech is bare-knuckled?
- Bare-knuckled is an adjective.
Words near bare-knuckled in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bare-knuckled (page history and authors); bare-knuckle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “bare-knuckled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bare-knuckled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.