knucklehead
Americannoun
-
knuckleheads
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of knucklehead
Explanation
A knucklehead is someone who is a dunce or does something foolish. You might criticize your friend's baking skills by saying, "You used salt instead of sugar, you knucklehead!" Knucklehead is an informal term that can come across as joking rather than insulting, depending how you use it. A pair of brothers might call each other knuckleheads in a fond way: "Hang on, I'm coming with you on your bike ride, you knucklehead!" The word is uniquely American, coined in the late nineteenth century, but made popular in the 1940s by an Army recruitment character known as "R. F. Knucklehead."
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:
He has previously branded Powell a "knucklehead" and claimed he was "doing a lousy job" after his repeated calls for interest rate cuts were ignored.
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
“I’m a knucklehead sometimes,” he said as he stumbled to explain his claim to being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre.
From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2024
“I understand international, dangerous people, and with all due respect to Mr. Rundo, he was a knucklehead who was misguided,” Carney said on Tuesday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2024
“If Twitter becomes the go-to platform for the knucklehead brigade, advertisers will run, not walk.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2022
“Probably some knucklehead who was forced to work in here during in-school suspension.”
From "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson
The knuckleheads causing civic havoc should be sentenced to root for the Brooklyn Nets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
When some within government are describing others within government to me as "knuckleheads", you can be confident there's lively debate internally about how to manage this.
From BBC ● May 16, 2022
It is not hard to imagine, though, that any knuckleheads who were heretofore inclined to bite and punch fellow travelers to protest the mask mandate may not suddenly learn manners.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 22, 2022
The councilman, referring to public meetings before the pandemic, cited the “disruptions in the hallways” and “the childish behavior from knuckleheads who frequent our buildings.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2021
“Yeah. Buellton and Brownley, really, but what kind of names are those for knuckleheads like them? Mom was going through some snobbish upper-class phase with husband number one.”
From "Among the Hidden" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
