knuckle under

verb

knuckled under; knuckling under; knuckles under

intransitive verb

: give in, submit

Synonyms

• blink
• bow
• budge
• capitulate
• concede
• give in
• quit
• relent
• submit
• succumb
• surrender
• yield

Examples of knuckle under in a Sentence

encouraged her to stand firm and not knuckle under to political pressure

the remote outpost was overrun and forced to knuckle under

Recent Examples on the Web

Of course, Cruz knuckled under a little while later. —James Hohmann, Washington Post, 9 July 2024

Miraculously, however, it is told in the voice of a musician, Rainy, a man who refuses to knuckle under and whose tones remain kind and more hopeful than despairing. —Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post, 22 June 2024

Biden is all too willing to knuckle under both to the environmentalists who want to stop any new conventional-energy development and to the labor bosses who don’t want to see the ports modernized and automated, which might eat into their discretionary funds. —The Editors, National Review, 23 June 2022

Please do not knuckle under. —Abigail Van Buren, oregonlive, 25 Oct. 2021

His determination to hold on to his dignity, to not knuckle under, marked a pathway for our family to move forward, to expand on what he’d not been allowed to do. —Deborah Johnson, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Feb. 2023

As noted in this space in 2015, the company required participants in its Times Journeys program — pricey overseas trips guided by Times journalists — to knuckle under to an arbitration clause. —Erik Wemple, Washington Post, 24 Dec. 2022

Europe’s governing parties can’t knuckle under to Russian blackmail and retain their democratic viability. —Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 30 Aug. 2022

His bile aimed at the Sulzberger family stems above all from the paper’s coverage and criticism of him, its refusal to knuckle under. —David Remnick, The New Yorker, 21 Dec. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1869, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for knuckle under

• asunder
• blunder
• bunder
• funder
• plunder
• sunder
• thunder

Kids Definition

knuckle under

verb

: submit sense 4, give in