you know

Idioms

You are aware, you see, do you remember, as in She's very lonely, you know, so do go and visit, or You know, this exhibit ends tomorrow, or You know that black dog our neighbors had? She was run over a year ago. This phrase is also quite often a conversational filler, equivalent to “um” and occasionally repeated over and over (as in It's a fine day for, you know, the beach, and, you know, we could leave now); this usage is more oral than written, and many consider it deplorable. [Late 1500s]

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.

As a comedy, it is often predicable — you know that things will work out, and some major plot points are as good as inevitable — but it’s the good sort of predictability, where you get what you came for, where you hear the words you want to hear, ones you could never have written yourself.

From Los Angeles Times

What do you know about Gen Z consumers, and how are you attracting their dollars?

From The Wall Street Journal

“Chuck is a real-estate investor, you know, so he tries to spend the least amount of money,” said Dirk de Pagter, the founder of a Telluride real-estate firm.

From The Wall Street Journal

“It’s my way or the highway, you know.”

From The Wall Street Journal

He also called Rohl "a very young man", which was tantamount to telling him to "sit down, you know nothing of this fixture".

From BBC

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