Word.ws English Dictionary

known one's place

known one's place is the past participle of know one's place.

Meaning of know one's place

Verb

know one's place (third-person singular simple present knows one's place, present participle knowing one's place, simple past knew one's place, past participle known one's place)

  1. To understand one's rank or status and behave accordingly; to act humbly.
    • Had he been taught early and thoroughly to know his place, and be content with his faculty, he would have been one of the happiest and most serviceable of men.1871 September 1, John Ruskin, “Letter IX”, in Fors Clavigera. Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain, volume I, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, →OCLC, page 7
    Synonyms:
    stay in one's lane, know some manners
    1. (sometimes) To avoid intermixing and interacting with people of other races.

Questions about known one's place

What is known one's place the past participle of?
Known one's place is the past participle of know one's place.

Words near known one's place in the dictionary

  1. known one's head from a hole in the ground
  2. known one's head from one's ass
  3. known one's onions
  4. known one's own head
  5. known one's own mind
  6. known one's place
  7. known one's shit
  8. known one's stuff
  9. known one's way around
  10. known quantities
  11. known quantity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: known one's place (page history and authors); know one's place (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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