knee-trembling

Adjective

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

1. Terrified.
   • A terrible, knee-trembling wash of terror ran down his spine as he lifted the gun and pressed its cold metal to his chest.1991, Gene Lazuta, Bleeder, →ISBN, page 71
   • An example: say Lyndon Baines Johnson had gotten wind that he was being trashed by some Capitol Hill minnow, chances are a single phone call from the Oval Office would have been enough to induce a knee-trembling silence.2001, Colin Evans, Great Feuds in History: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever, →ISBN
2. Thrilled.
   • "I just want to look at you," he said, his blatant stare filling her with knee-trembling excitement.1994, Susan Connell, Rings on Her Fingers, →ISBN, page 169
   • The first said Clare Philips and Magpie, the second, to my knee-trembling delight, said Adam Bray and Custar and the third one we came to said Paula Wilkie and Jazz, so we went in.2006, Isolde Pullum, Brazen Horse, →ISBN, page 68
3. Overwhelmed.
   • Hearing the familiar voice, I felt a sudden rush of stomach-empty, knee-trembling relief.1979, Collin Wilcox, Power Plays, →ISBN, page 202
   • Knee-trembling exhaustion. With each step he'd felt like he was fighting gravity just to stay upright and he'd developed a niggling pain in his lower back, the first pain he had experienced in all his very long years.2007, Kathryn Deans, Glow: Troll's Tale 2: The Continuation of a Troll's Tale, →ISBN
4. Very frightening.
   • The putting surface, however, has three levels and it can offer a knee-trembling experience where the danger of a three-putt is acute.1981, Tom Ramsey, 25 Great Australian Golf Courses and how to Play Them, page 161
   • Where, the purists cry, are the heart-racing climbs and knee-trembling descents for which the Dolomites is justly famed?2001, Henry Stedman, Trekking in the Dolomites, →ISBN, page 138
5. Causing a feeling of rapture.
   • Standing near the soloists during a finale was a knee-trembling experience.1996, Adrienne Simpson, Opera's farthest frontier, →ISBN
   • Things like the consciousness-expanding, life-altering, knee-trembling mind and music of John Winston Ono Lennon.2001, Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon in America: 1971-1980, Based in Part on the Lost Lennon Diaries, →ISBN
6. Impressive.
   • If the trust's assets grow by 5 per cent each year, the redemption yield for capital shareholders will be a knee-trembling 75.9 per cent a year.2004, Investors Chronicle, page 65
   • Not only is it now acceptable to be curious — and this book is largely about how that came to be the case — but it is easier than ever, because of the knee-trembling quantity of information we have at our fingertips.2013, Philip Ball, Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything, →ISBN, page vii
7. Involving a knee-trembler.
   • That is definitely better than having them all walking the streets, dropping litter, binge-drinking in pubs, defecating in alleyways, having knee-trembling encounters in skips that frequently result in pregnancy, and so on.2008, Ethan Greenhart, Can I Recycle My Granny?: And 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas, page 167
   • Suggestions of a knee-trembling encounter on a snooker table in Bird's gentlemen's club lend the story a Palmerstonesque flavour – legend has it that the Victorian prime minister and old rascal died while potting the balls on the green baize with his maid.2015, Nick Robinson, Election Notebook