knee jerk
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A sudden reflexive movement of the leg below the knee.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
neejurkSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈniˈdʒɝk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A sudden reflexive movement of the leg below the knee, as a reaction to a tap to the tendon just below the patella (kneecap).
adjective
Unthinking, not carefully considered, (nearly) automatic, spontaneous, easily predictable.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A sudden reflexive movement of the leg below the knee, as a reaction to a tap to the tendon just below the patella (kneecap).
Used this way, knee jerk is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Sudden and forceful
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.