- knuckle
[knuckle 词源字典] - knuckle: [14] Knuckle originally denoted the rounded end of a bone at a joint, which sticks out when you bend the joint. This could be at any joint, including the elbow, the knee and even the joints of the vertebrae; only gradually did it become specialized to the finger joints. The word probably came from Middle Low German knökel (or a relative of it), which appears to have meant etymologically ‘little bone’. Knuckle down, in the sense ‘begin to work hard and conscientiously’, comes from the game of marbles, where players have to put their knuckles on the ground when shooting a marble with the thumb.
[knuckle etymology, knuckle origin, 英语词源] - knuckle (n.)
- mid-14c., knokel "finger joint; any joint of the body, especially a knobby one; morbid lump or swelling;" common Germanic (cognates: Middle Low German knökel, Middle Dutch cnockel, German knöchel), literally "little bone," a diminutive of Proto-Germanic root *knuk- "bone" (compare German Knochen "bone).
As a verb from 1740, originally in the game of marbles. To knuckle down "apply oneself earnestly" is 1864 in American English, extended from marbles (putting a knuckle on the ground in assuming the hand position preliminary to shooting); to knuckle under "submit, give in" is first recorded 1740, supposedly from the former more general sense of "knuckle" and here meaning "knee," hence "to kneel." The face-busting knuckle-duster is from 1858 (a duster was a type of protective coat worn by workmen).
