knuckle down

English · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

knuckle down

Where it comes from

1864 in American English, from the game of marbles.

verb knuckles down · knuckling down · knuckled down

idiomatic, intransitive To get to work; to focus on a task. You should knuckle down and do your homework!
Similar: belly up to the bar, get one's act together, pull up one's socks, roll up one's sleeves, shape up
To submit; knuckle under.

Translations

Every language

verb to get to work

Français	se mettre au travail
Română	se pune pe treabă, se apuca de lucru

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"knuckle down." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/knuckle%20down. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

knuckle down. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/knuckle%20down

Chicago

"knuckle down." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/knuckle%20down.

BibTeX

@misc{knuckle_down_2026,
  title = {knuckle down},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/knuckle%20down},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}