knee-jerk reaction
knee-jerk reaction noun: an instantaneous reaction made without thought.
Noun
knee-jerk reaction (plural knee-jerk reactions)
- An instantaneous reaction made without thought.
- Near-synonym: gut reaction
- But does the level crossing really need upgrading? Listening to Prosser, one gets the impression that this need to 'upgrade' is almost a kneejerk reaction. Although it is manually operated, Prosser thinks that the crossing is "pretty safe as it is", especially given the levels of traffic on the...2026 April 1, Richard Foster, “Fenland bridge "not safe"”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 33
- Synonyms:
- gut reaction
Synonyms of knee-jerk reaction
Forms of knee-jerk reaction
| plural | knee-jerk reactions |
|---|
Origin of knee-jerk reaction
By means of an elliptical reference to the reflexes of reflex arcs, in this case the patellar reflex.
Questions about knee-jerk reaction
- What does knee-jerk reaction mean?
- Knee-jerk reaction means an instantaneous reaction made without thought.
- What part of speech is knee-jerk reaction?
- Knee-jerk reaction is a noun.
- What is the plural of knee-jerk reaction?
- The plural of knee-jerk reaction is knee-jerk reactions.
Words near knee-jerk reaction in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: knee-jerk reaction (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: “knee-jerk reaction.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knee-jerk_reaction. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.