bend the knee

verb bends the knee · bending the knee · bent the knee

1. idiomatic To swear fealty or allegiance to another person. The timid among them declared that he would burn the houses and hang all that had bent the knee to King Louis.
2. idiomatic To submit to or show reverence toward a divine power. Jezebel, though she bent the knee to Baal, was pleasing in Ahab’s sight; and he saw that her father’s army, though deplorably pagan, wielded heavy swords.
3. broadly, idiomatic To show undue deference, obedience, or support for someone or something. Some thought we had in Mr. [Abraham] Lincoln the nerve and decision of an Oliver Cromwell; but the result shows that we merely have a continuation of the Pierces and Buchanans, and that the Republican President bends the knee to slavery as readily as any of his infamous predecessors.