knucklehead
[nuhk-uh l-hed]
- a stupid, bumbling, inept person.
Show More
Origin of knucklehead
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
boneheadfoolscrewballjackassdunceoafidiotninnybusttomfoolsimpletonnoodlechumpmoronnincompoopnumskulldoltknuckleheadassdonkeyExamples from the Web for knucklehead
Contemporary Examples
To cops, Greene appears to be living proof that going to Harvard does not necessarily make you any less a knucklehead.
NY Couple Not Terrorists, Say Cops, Just Rich Kids With Drug HabitsMichael Daly, Lizzie Crocker
January 1, 2013
As a hiker, I thought Strayed was a knucklehead—but a likable one.
knucklehead
- informal fool; idiot
Show More
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for knucklehead
n.
"stupid person," 1890, American English, from knuckle (n.) + head (n.).
"That infernal knuckle-head at the camp ought to have reported before now," he thought to himself, as he smoked. [Charles H. Shinn, "The Quicksands of Toro," in "Belford's Magazine," vol. V, June-November 1890, New York]
From 1869 as the name of a part in a type of mechanical coupling device. Popularized in the "stupid person" sense from 1942, from character R.F. Knucklehead, star of "Don't" posters hung up at U.S. Army Air Force training fields.
Everything Knucklehead does is wrong and ends in disaster. He endures one spectacular crash after another so that the students at the Gulf Coast Air Force Training Center may profit by his mistakes, and it looks now as if there will be no let-up in his agony. ["Life," May 25, 1942]
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper