Word.ws English Dictionary

you know what

you know what phrase: used, often as a question, to get someone's attention before announcing something.

Phrase

you know what?

  1. (idiomatic) Used, often as a question, to get someone's attention before announcing something.
    • Well, you know what, he's got a cloud over him. You have to live with who you are and make your peace with your maker about what you really are.2001 May 10, "Blake's Attorney on Bakley's Murder", CNN Live (transcript)
    • Well, I guess I’ve got to say, I love the Madonna one that we did — the Drowned world tour. Actually, you know what? The first Blonde Ambition tour I loved. The “Vogue” thing — that was a memorable moment in my lifetime.2009 March 23, Alex Hawgood, “The Three-Ring Circus”, in New York Times

Synonyms of you know what

Questions about you know what

What does you know what mean?
You know what means used, often as a question, to get someone's attention before announcing something.
What part of speech is you know what?
You know what is a phrase.

Words near you know what in the dictionary

  1. you kiss your mother with that mouth
  2. you know
  3. you know it
  4. you know nothing, Jon Snow
  5. you know something
  6. you know what
  7. you know what I mean
  8. you know what I'm saying
  9. you know what they say
  10. you knows it
  11. you learn something new every day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: you know what (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-you know what.ogg, en-us-you know what.ogg.

Cite this entry: “you know what.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/you_know_what. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.