Synonyms

knuckle under

British

verb

(intr, adverb) to give way under pressure or authority; yield

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

knuckle under Idioms

Also, knuckle down. Give in, acknowledge defeat, as in The dean refused to knuckle under to the graduate students' demands, or He was forced to knuckle down before their threats of violence. Presumably this idiom alludes to a kneeling position with hands on the ground, knuckles down. [Mid-1700s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Early on in Rochester, for example, a “Dutch servant-girl rapped with her knuckles under the floor from the cellar.”

From Literature

“Those tools are expensive when applied to you even if we don’t win at the end of the day, so knuckle under.”

From The Wall Street Journal

People call New York a cesspool, but New Yorkers would never knuckle under to intolerance and let some lowlife get away with drawing swastikas.

From Literature

California-based chains considered their customers and their markets; they did not have to knuckle under to the marketing dictates of a distant headquarters.

From Los Angeles Times

Each, as it turned out, expected the other to knuckle under.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023