Word.ws English Dictionary

knep

knep verb: to bite gently, nibble.

Verb

knep (third-person singular simple present kneps, present participle knepping, simple past and past participle knepped)

  1. (Northern England) To bite gently, nibble.
  2. (Northern England) To graze, crop; (of horses) to bite in play.
  3. (Northern England) To pick or pick off (e.g. flowers, berries, etc.)
  4. (Scotland) To clasp the hands; to clench one's fists.
  5. (Scotland) To tie or bundle something tightly and securely.

Noun

knep (plural kneps)

  1. (Northern England, in plural) Synonym of kneppars.
    Synonyms:
    kneppars

Synonyms of knep

Forms of knep

Verb
third-person singular presentkneps
present participleknepping
past participleknepped
pastknepped
alternative formknepp
alternative formkneppe
alternative formknip
alternative formnep
alternative formnip
Noun
pluralkneps

Origin of knep

A variant of knap (etymology 3). Cognates * Danish kneppe (“to snap”) (obsolete) * Dutch knijpen (“to pinch, nip”), knippen (“to clip, snip”) * Norwegian Nynorsk kneppa (“to squeeze or join together”) * Scots knep (“to clench, bind”)

Words formed from knep

Questions about knep

What does knep mean?
Knep means to bite gently, nibble.
What part of speech is knep?
Knep can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of knep?
The past tense of knep is knepped.

Words near knep in the dictionary

  1. knelt down
  2. kneltest
  3. knemometer
  4. knemometers
  5. knemometry
  6. knep
  7. Kneph
  8. Knepp
  9. kneppars
  10. Knepper
  11. Kneppers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knep (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: “knep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.