Word.ws English Dictionary

knew what was what

knew what was what is the simple past of know what is what.

Meaning of know what is what

Verb

know what is what (third-person singular simple present knows what is what, present participle knowing what is what, simple past knew what was what, past participle known what was what)

  1. (idiomatic) To understand the current situation; to know what is going on.
    • He seems to have no trouble understanding stuff that, to me, sounds like hot garbage. He really does know what's what.

Questions about knew what was what

What is knew what was what the simple past of?
Knew what was what is the simple past of know what is what.

Words near knew what was what in the dictionary

  1. knew what side of one's bread was buttered
  2. knew what side of the bread is buttered
  3. knew what side of the bread was buttered
  4. knew what side one's bread is buttered on
  5. knew what side one's bread was buttered on
  6. knew what was what
  7. knew what's o'clock
  8. knew when to fold 'em
  9. knew where one stood
  10. knew where the bodies were buried
  11. knew whether one was Arthur or Martha

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knew what was what (page history and authors); know what is what (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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