Word.ws English Dictionary

knows one's place

knows one's place is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 knows one's place

What is knows one's place the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Knows one's place is the third-person singular simple present indicative of know one's place.

Words near knows one's place in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knows 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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