Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To cripple by shooting in the legs, especially in the knees.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The bone capping the protuberance of the knee; the kneepan; the patella. See cut under knee-joint.
  • noun Any covering for the knee, worn as a protection from injury either to the joint or to the clothing that covers it.
  • noun Milit., same as genouillère.

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

  • transitive verb to break the knees of, especially by shooting in the kneecap; -- often done by criminal or terrorist groups as a warning or punishment.
  • noun (Anat.) A roundish, flattened, sesamoid bone in the tendon in front of the knee joint; the patella; the kneepan.
  • noun A cap or protection for the knee.

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

  • noun The flat, roundish bone in the knee.
  • verb transitive To destroy the kneecaps of (a person), usually by shooting at the knees, as a punishment carried out by criminals or terrorists.

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

  • noun a small flat triangular bone in front of the knee that protects the knee joint
  • verb shoot in the kneecap, often done by terrorist groups as a warning

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

knee + cap

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Examples

Comments

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  • I'm told that babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age. Huh!

    October 5, 2007

  • I can't believe there are six-year olds walking around without kneecaps.

    October 5, 2007

  • Before all reading go out to poke children's knees in the name of experiment — they do; they're just not yet made of bone. “Ossification is completed about the age of puberty.”—Gray's Anatomy

    October 5, 2007

  • Rats. I was just about to go poke a kid's knees.

    October 5, 2007