Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A rounded protuberance.
  • noun A rounded handle, as on a drawer or door.
  • noun A rounded control switch or dial.
  • noun A prominent rounded hill or mountain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small flock, less than 30, of ducks: an English sporting-term.
  • To grow into knobs; bunch.
  • To produce a knob or knobs upon.
  • To free from knobs, as stone in the quarry, in rough-dressing it.
  • noun A rounded projection; a protuberance; a bunch; a knop.
  • noun A fleshy protuberance; a pimple.
  • noun A rounded projection forming the termination of something, as of a staff: specifically, the more or less ballshaped part of the handle for a door, drawer, or the like.
  • noun A prominent isolated hill; a hill generally: same as mound in Wisconsin and Iowa, and butte in the Cordilleran region. [Southern and western U. S.]
  • noun In entomology, a dilated outer portion of a part. Specifically — An expanded apical portion of an insect's antenna, as in a butterfly. In Diptera, the capitulum or outer portion of the halter or balancer. The distended outer portion of a fly's proboscis.
  • noun In a cannon, the spherical part at the rear end of the piece, forming the opposite extremity to the muzzle: it is a part of the cascabel. In ships' guns a breeching-loop takes the place of the knob.
  • noun In architecture, specifically, a bunch of leaves, flowers, or similar ornaments, as the boss at the intersection of ribs, the end of a label or other molding, or a bunch of foliage in a capital. In this sense also called knop and knot. See cut under boss.
  • noun Same as knobstick.
  • noun The rudiment of a deer's antler. Compare knobber.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb obsolete To grow into knobs or bunches; to become knobbed.
  • noun A hard protuberance; a hard swelling or rising; a bunch; a lump.
  • noun A knoblike ornament or handle.
  • noun United States A rounded hill or mountain.
  • noun (Arch.) See Knop.
  • noun a latch which can be operated by turning a knob, without using a key.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A rounded protuberance, handle, or control switch.
  • noun geography A prominent rounded hill.
  • noun A rounded ornament on the hilt of an edged weapon; a pommel.
  • noun A prominent, rounded bump along a mountain ridge.
  • noun UK, New Zealand, slang A penis.
  • noun slang, pejorative A contemptible person.
  • noun cooking A dollop, an amount just larger than a spoonful (usually referring to butter)
  • verb UK, slang, vulgar, of a man To have sex with.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a round handle
  • noun an ornament in the shape of a ball on the hilt of a sword or dagger
  • noun a circular rounded projection or protuberance
  • noun any thickened enlargement

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English knobbe, from Middle Low German, knot in wood.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English knobbe, from Middle Low German knobbe, knoppe ("a knot in wood"), from Proto-Germanic *knuppô (“lump, clod”), from Proto-Indo-European *gneub-, *gneup- (“to press, crush”). Cognate with Dutch knop ("button, knob"), German Knopf ("button, knob"), Swedish knopp ("knob"), Old English cnoppa ("knob"). See also knop.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Bonk in reverse.

    January 29, 2007

  • Seems somehow appropriate!

    November 5, 2007

  • UK slang for penis.

    February 29, 2008