KNACK • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Knack

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/næk/ Listen

noun

Knack n.

1.

A petty contrivance; a toy; a plaything; a knickknack. "A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap."

2.

A readiness in performance; aptness at doing a specific task; skill; aptitude; facility; dexterity; often used with for; as, a knack for playing the guitar. "The fellow... has not the knack with his shears." "The dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme."

3.

Something performed, or to be done, requiring aptness and dexterity; a trick; a device. "The knacks of japers." "For how should equal colors do the knack!"

verb

Knack v. i.

1.

To crack; to make a sharp, abrupt noise to chink. (Obs. or Prov. Eng.)

2.

To speak affectedly. (Prov. Eng.)

See images of 'Knack'

Etymology of 'Knack'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Knack" Quotes from Famous Books

... that!" she said, with gay imperiousness. "You pale-eyed folk have a horrible knack of making one feel as if one is under a microscope. Your worthy uncle is just the same. If I weren't so deeply in love with him, I might resent it. But Nick is a privileged person, isn't he, wherever he goes? Didn't someone once say of him that he rushes in where angels fear to tread? ...

— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... insufflation should be taught to every interne in every hospital. The emergency or accident ward of every hospital should have the necessary equipment and an interne familiar with its use. The method is simple, once the knack is acquired. The patient being limp and recumbent on a table, the larynx is exposed with the laryngoscope, and the bronchoscope is inserted as hereinafter described. The oxygen is turned on at the tank and the flow regulated before the rubber tube from the wash-bottle of tank is attached to the ...

— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... herself was wearing her best white apron, stiff with starch, her lace collar, and her hair in her best imitation of the way Margaret had fixed it, although it must be confessed she hadn't quite caught the knack of arrangement yet. But the one great difference Margaret noticed in the old woman was the illuminating smile on her face. Mom Wallis had learned how to let the glory gleam through all the hard sordidness ...

— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... one is able to settle down in comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from Chung-king in December, I counted no less than ...

— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... is because I approach her aided by my knowledge of her filial affection. As it is, however, these things are quite common. My own wife felt much the same way with myself, and yet we lived as happily as most people. Every young baggage must have her scenes and her sacrifices. Ah! what a knack they have got at magnifying everything! How do you do, my Lady Dunroe? half a dozen times repeated, however, will awaken her vanity, and banish ...

— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

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