Knack
nounA natural or acquired skill that lets someone do something easily and well.
How to spell knack
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce knack
What does knack mean?
- nounA natural or acquired skill that lets someone do something easily and well.
Knack in a sentence
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She has a real knack for calming nervous clients.
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With practice he developed a knack for parking in tight spaces.
Where does knack come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Knack first appears in Middle English around the 1300s, where it meant a sharp blow or a snapping sound, very close to the modern verb 'to knock'. It is thought to be imitative in origin, echoing a sudden crack, and it has close relatives in Low German and Dutch 'knak', meaning a sharp report or snap. From the idea of a quick, neat movement the word drifted to mean a clever trick or ingenious little device, and from there to its modern sense of an acquired, almost effortless skill. The same imitative family lies behind 'knick-knack', a small ornamental trinket, which doubles the playful sound. The silent k- is the spelling trap: it survives from a time when English speakers actually pronounced the k before n, as in 'knee' and 'knife', though the sound itself has long since fallen silent.
How the word is built
- knack (single root; the silent initial k- preserves the older Germanic pronunciation in which both letters were sounded)
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