an initial combination common to all the Teutonic langs. and still retained by most. In English, the k is now silent, alike in educated speech and in most of the dialects; but it was pronounced app. till about the middle of the 17th c. In the later 17th and early 18th c., writers on pronunciation give the value of the combination as = hn, tn, dn or simple n. The last was prob. quite established in Standard English by 1750. The k is still pronounced in some Scottish dialects; in others the guttural is assimilated to the dental, making tn-, esp. after vowels, as a tnife, my tnee.
