knoll
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
knolls,
present (3rd person singular)
-
knolled,
past participle, past
-
knolling
present participle
-
to ring or toll a bell for; announce by tolling.
-
to ring or toll (a bell).
verb (used without object)
-
knolls,
present (3rd person singular)
-
knolled,
past participle, past
-
knolling
present participle
-
to sound, as a bell; ring.
-
to sound a knell.
noun
noun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
knollsimple
-
knollssimple
-
have knolledperfect
-
has knolledperfect
-
am knollingprogressive
-
are knollingprogressive
-
is knollingprogressive
-
have been knollingperfect progressive
-
has been knollingperfect progressive
Past
-
knolledsimple
-
had knolledperfect
-
was knollingprogressive
-
were knollingprogressive
-
had been knollingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of knoll1
before 900; Middle English cnol, Old English cnoll; cognate with Norwegian knoll hillock; akin to Dutch knol turnip, Icelandic knollur, German Knollen, Danish knold tuber
Origin of knoll2
1350–1400; Middle English (noun and v.); variant of knell
Explanation
A knoll is a small hill or mound of earth, which makes a shady knoll a perfect spot for a summer picnic. The word knoll is associated with the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was shot in Dallas just as his motorcade passed a grassy knoll. At first people thought that was where the shots had come from, but it was later determined that the assassin had fired from a nearby building instead. The "grassy knoll” became symbolic of a theory that others had participated in the assassination, and the term has become shorthand for any conspiracy theory.
Vocabulary lists containing knoll
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
From home bakers to professionals, influencers to non-bakers, everyone places their cakes on the tables stretching across the grassy knoll, with Sydney's famed Harbour Bridge as the backdrop.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2026
Finally, a driver came to the rescue, jumping out of his car and racing onto the knoll, baiting the turkey to give chase.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 29, 2023
With treelike structures, a green knoll and overhead chimes incorporating colorful carved birds, the 3,500-square-foot space exposes young minds to art’s most fundamental ingredients: materials.
From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2023
The multicolored toilet had been left in a grassy knoll near an AMC Theatre at the mall, GPD Sgt.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 26, 2023
The children, meanwhile, were gathering on a little knoll some way off, staring at the witches and whispering together fearfully.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
Homeless people live in or around the park, many sleeping on the grassy knolls by the water.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2025
Iowa at the time, Mr. Hill said, would have been a “parkland,” with patches of trees mixed in with grassy knolls.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 1, 2023
Three zebras have been frocklicking through the lush, grassy knolls of Prince George’s County, Maryland, since the end of August.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2021
After climbing a brisk 1500 feet in two miles, hikers emerge from evergreen forest to a ridgeline and a series of rolling knolls.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2017
It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Spreads in their 160-page book show some outfits knolled from hat to scarf to shoes to handbag, alongside sketches from the Mattel archives and drawings by the film’s costume designers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2024
I, too, have been knolled to church, and sat at good men's feasts; but I bear no mark of it.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) by Andrew Lang
“If ever been where bells have knolled to church”; if you have ever been within sound of Bow bells; if you have ever been happy and haughty enough to call yourself a Cockney.
From Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
The humble records of my life to search, I have not herded with mere pagan beasts: But sometimes I have "sat at good men's feasts," And I have been "where bells have knolled to church."
From The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe by James Parton
Mountain after mountain ranged in the distance, some with rounded or knolled heads, others rising to a peak.
From Fairy Tales from the German Forests by Margaret Arndt
Seventy-three bells in chromatic diapason—with their tinkling, ringing, tolling, knolling peal!
From Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Five years has a melancholy sound to me now, for it is like a passing-bell, knolling away time.
From Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 by Robert Ornsby
The knolling of the heavy bell grows softer.
From David Lockwin—The People's Idol by John McGovern
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remembered knolling a departed friend.
From Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett
“And his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell Remembered knolling a departing friend.”
From Old Church Lore by William Andrews
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
