Word.ws English Dictionary

knee-jerk

knee-jerk adjective: unthinking, not carefully considered, (nearly) automatic, spontaneous, easily predictable.

Adjective

knee-jerk (comparative more knee-jerk, superlative most knee-jerk)

  1. Unthinking, not carefully considered, (nearly) automatic, spontaneous, easily predictable.
    • He gave a knee-jerk response.
    • There were knee-jerk demands from trade unions for immediate withdrawal of all HSTs; these were wrong-headed.2022 March 23, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Drains, trains and Control”, in RAIL, number 953, page 3

Noun

knee-jerk (plural knee-jerks)

  1. A sudden reflexive movement of the leg below the knee, as a reaction to a tap to the tendon just below the patella (kneecap).

knee-jerk meaning in Kannada

knee-jerk in Kannada

ಮಂಡಿ ಸೆಳೆತ, ಅನಾಲೋಚಿತ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ

Synonyms of knee-jerk

Forms of knee-jerk

Adjective
comparativemore knee-jerk
superlativemost knee-jerk
alternative formkneejerk
alternative formknee jerk
Noun
pluralknee-jerks

Origin of knee-jerk

From knee + jerk, First attested c. 1876, and derived from a figurative sense of the patellar reflex.

Words formed from knee-jerk

Phrases with knee-jerk

Questions about knee-jerk

What does knee-jerk mean?
Knee-jerk means unthinking, not carefully considered, (nearly) automatic, spontaneous, easily predictable.
What is knee-jerk in Kannada?
Knee-jerk in Kannada is ಮಂಡಿ ಸೆಳೆತ, ಅನಾಲೋಚಿತ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ. See Knee-jerk meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is knee-jerk?
Knee-jerk can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near knee-jerk in the dictionary

  1. knee-high
  2. knee-high blackberry
  3. knee-high by the Fourth of July
  4. knee-high to a grasshopper
  5. knee-highs
  6. knee-jerk
  7. knee-jerk reaction
  8. knee-jerk reactions
  9. knee-jerkery
  10. knee-jerking
  11. knee-jerkish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knee-jerk (page history and authors); knee-jerk (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-knee-jerk.wav.

Cite this entry: “knee-jerk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knee-jerk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.