Word.ws English Dictionary

knuckle down

knuckle down verb: to get to work; to focus on a task.

Verb

knuckle down (third-person singular simple present knuckles down, present participle knuckling down, simple past and past participle knuckled down)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To get to work; to focus on a task.
    • You should knuckle down and do your homework!
    • As students all over the United States knuckle down to learning, the rumble of war drums once more proclaims Mars high man in Europe. Discarding morbid curiosity, every student should consider it vitally necessary to get a general picture of the causes, movements, and possible effects of World War...1939 November 10, “Following The War”, in The Chart, volume I, number 1, Joplin, Missouri: Joplin Junior College, page 4, column 1
  2. To submit; knuckle under.

knuckle down meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

knuckle down in Tamil

பணிக்கு ஆயத்தமாகுதல்

knuckle down in Urdu

گھٹنے کے بل جھکنا

knuckle down in Bengali

কাজে নামা, একটি কাজে মনোযোগ দেওয়া, বশ্যতা স্বীকার করা, নতি স্বীকার করা

knuckle down in Kannada

ಶ್ರದ್ಧೆಯಿಂದ ಕೆಲಸದಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಡಗಿಸಿಕೊ, ಒಗ್ಗು, ಶರಣಾಗು

Synonyms of knuckle down

All synonyms of knuckle down

Forms of knuckle down

third-person singular presentknuckles down
present participleknuckling down
past participleknuckled down
pastknuckled down

Origin of knuckle down

1864 in American English, from the game of marbles.

Questions about knuckle down

What does knuckle down mean?
Knuckle down means to get to work; to focus on a task.
What is knuckle down in Tamil?
Knuckle down in Tamil is பணிக்கு ஆயத்தமாகுதல். See Knuckle down meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is knuckle down?
Knuckle down is a verb.
What is the past tense of knuckle down?
The past tense of knuckle down is knuckled down.

Words near knuckle down in the dictionary

  1. knuckle
  2. knuckle ball
  3. knuckle bow
  4. knuckle bows
  5. knuckle children
  6. knuckle down
  7. knuckle dragger
  8. knuckle draggers
  9. knuckle duster
  10. knuckle dusters
  11. knuckle joint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knuckle down (page history and authors); knuckle down (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); knuckle down (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); knuckle down (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); knuckle down (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-knuckle down.ogg.

Cite this entry: “knuckle down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knuckle_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.