Word.ws English Dictionary

stick to one's knitting

stick to one's knitting verb: to concentrate on one's own tasks, affairs, area of expertise, etc., especially in order to avoid distraction, embarrassment, or other needless problems.

Verb

stick to one's knitting (third-person singular simple present sticks to one's knitting, present participle sticking to one's knitting, simple past and past participle stuck to one's knitting)

  1. (idiomatic) To concentrate on one's own tasks, affairs, area of expertise, etc., especially in order to avoid distraction, embarrassment, or other needless problems.
    • [A]s sportsmen I think that we should stick to our knitting and not allow economic or social conditions to interfere with the Olympic Games.1935 October 27, “Helene Mayer to be in Olympics: Woman Fencing Champion Accepts Invitation”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 Oct 2013
    • Researchers should stick to their knitting, finding cancer cures and discovering new shades of lipstick, and refrain from debunking history.1975 Nov. 21, "Puritans Denied Drumstick" (editorial), Spokane Daily Chronicle, p. 4 (retrieved 1 Oct 2013)

Synonyms of stick to one's knitting

Forms of stick to one's knitting

third-person singular presentsticks to one's knitting
present participlesticking to one's knitting
past participlestuck to one's knitting
paststuck to one's knitting
alternative formattend to one's knitting
alternative form’tend to one’s knitting
alternative formtend to one's knitting
alternative formkeep to one's knitting

Questions about stick to one's knitting

What does stick to one's knitting mean?
Stick to one's knitting means to concentrate on one's own tasks, affairs, area of expertise, etc., especially in order to avoid distraction, embarrassment, or other needless problems.
What part of speech is stick to one's knitting?
Stick to one's knitting is a verb.
What is the past tense of stick to one's knitting?
The past tense of stick to one's knitting is stuck to one's knitting.

Words near stick to one's knitting in the dictionary

  1. stick time
  2. stick times
  3. stick to
  4. stick to business
  5. stick to one's guns
  6. stick to one's knitting
  7. stick to one's last
  8. stick to one's own knitting
  9. stick to one's post
  10. stick to one's text
  11. stick to someone's ribs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stick to one's knitting (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-stick to one's knitting.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stick to one's knitting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stick_to_one%27s_knitting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.