the bee's knees
the bee's knees noun: something or someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.
Noun
the bee's knees pl (plural only)
- Something or someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.
- We had strawberry shortcake for breakfast on Saturday and the kids thought it was the bee’s knees.
- I used to play in a band when I was younger. We had a few fans and we thought we were the bee’s knees.
- Synonyms:
- cat's meow, cat's pyjamas, dog's bollocks, the bomb, all that and a bag of chips, antelope's cantaloupes, ant's pants, bee's knees, bollocks, cat's ass
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bee, -'s, knee. Corbiculae.
Synonyms of the bee's knees
- cat's meow
- cat's pyjamas
- dog's bollocks
- the bomb
- all that and a bag of chips
- antelope's cantaloupes
- ant's pants
- bee's knees
- bollocks
- cat's ass
20 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- cat's pajamas
- cat's whiskers
- cream of the crop
- crème de la crème
- da bomb
- dog's dangly bits
- finger-lickin' good
- finger-licking good
- flea's eyebrows
- fox's socks
- greatest thing since sliced bread
- gold standard
- kitty's titties
- llama's pajamas
- mutt's nuts
- ne plus ultra
- spider's ankles
- the business
- the shit
- the tits
Origin of the bee's knees
Attested since 1922, of unclear origin. There are several suggested origins, but it most likely arose in imitation of the numerous animal-related nonsense phrases popular in the 1920s such as the cat's pyjamas, cat's whiskers, cat's meow, gnat's elbow, monkey's eyebrows etc. A popular folk etymology has the phrase referring to the world champion dancer Bee Jackson. Another suggestion is that the phrase is a corruption of business. The singular bee's knee is attested from the late 18th century meaning something small or insignificant in the phrase big as a bee's knee. Also as weak as a bee's knee is attested in Ireland (1870). It is possible that the bee's knees is a deliberate inversion of this meaning but is not attested. Another possibility is that this is a reference to the (visible) blobs of pollen in bees' corbiculae.
Questions about the bee's knees
- What does the bee's knees mean?
- The bee's knees means something or someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.
- What part of speech is the bee's knees?
- The bee's knees is a noun.
Words near the bee's knees in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: the bee's knees (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-the bee's knees.ogg.
Cite this entry: “the bee's knees.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_bee%27s_knees. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.