Knack

//næk// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A readiness in performance; aptness at doing something.

    "These men had some uncanny knack of knowing when the steel was right, and like many such things, it just could not be put into a textbook on the subject."

  2. 2
    a special way of doing something wordnet
  3. 3
    A petty contrivance; a toy.
  4. 4
    Something performed, or to be done, requiring aptness and dexterity.
Verb
  1. 1
    To crack; to make a sharp, abrupt noise; to chink. UK, dialectal, obsolete

    "If they hear the Beads knack upon each other, that's enough."

  2. 2
    To speak affectedly.
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
bentabilityadroitnessaptitudeaptnessart

Example

More examples

"I am not an artist. I never had the knack for it."

Etymology

Use as "special skill" from 1580. Possibly from 14th century Middle English krak (“a sharp blow”), knakke, knakken, from Middle Low German, by onomatopoeia. Latter cognate to German knacken (“to crack”). See also crack.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.