noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act of injuring the knees of (a person), usually by shooting at the knees; often a punishment carried out by criminals or terrorists. countable, gerund, uncountable

   "The mafiosi punished the informer by giving him a kneecapping."

2. 2
   An excessively and needlessly damaging attack or disparagement. broadly, countable, figuratively, gerund, uncountable

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of kneecap form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

kneepanpatellabonekneepanpatellarotula

Example

More examples

"The mafiosi punished the informer by giving him a kneecapping."

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