Forms: 4–6 knak, knakke (pl. knakkes, 5 knax), 5–7 knacke, 6– knack, (4 gnack(e, 6 neck, 9 nack). [Origin obscure: in age and forms agreeing with KNACK sb.1, and possibly the same word; but the connection of sense is not clear.]
1. A trick; a device, artifice; formerly often, a deceitful or crafty device, a mean or underhand trick; later esp. an adroit or ingenious method of doing something, a clever expedient, a ‘dodge.’
c. 1369. Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 1033. She ne used no suche knakkes smale.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 184. Coueitous laweieris wiþ here gnackis & iapis.
a. 1420. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 1395. Al þis … Is but a iape, who seith, or a knak.
c. 1470. Henryson, Mor. Fab., V. (Parl. Beasts), xxx. ‘Let be, lowrence,’ quod scho, ‘your courtlie knax.’
c. 1540. Earl Surrey, Poems (1854), 68. I have found a neck To keep my men in guard.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke, Pref. 13. Swete pleasaunte knackes and conceiptes.
1568. Jacob & Esau, II. ii. in Hazl., Dodsley, II. 214. That ever son of thine should play such a lewd knack!
1584. R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., XII. xviii. (1886), 225. A knacke to knowe whether you be bewitched or no.
1660. Dial. Tom & Dick, 1. If George does not do the knack, Ne’re trust good-fellow more.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1716, I. 174. Slander seemeth … a fine knack, or curious feat of policy.
1735. Pope, Ep. Lady, 155. How should equal Colours do the knack?
1829. Carlyle, Misc., Germ. Playwrights (1872), II. 91. He has some knack, or trick of the trade.
2. The ‘trick’ of dexterous performance; an acquired faculty of doing something cleverly, adroitly and successfully. (Now the leading sense.)
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, v. (1887), 34. They that haue any naturall towardnesse to write well, haue a knacke of drawing to.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 287. Our Holland had the true knack of translating.
1710. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), II. I. i. 189. A violent Desire … to know the Knack or Secret by which Nature does all.
1713. Steele, Guard., No. 10, ¶ 6. He who hath no knack at writing sonnets.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 54. He always had a knack of making himself understood among the women.
1834. Beckford, Italy, II. xv. 83. Sister Theresa has an admirable knack for teaching arithmetic.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 68. Most Spaniards have a peculiar knack in making omelettes.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, v. 48. You think the knack to do this does you good?
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Work & Days, Wks. (Bohn), III. 68. Look up the inventors. Each has his own knack.
b. A ‘trick’ of action, speech, etc.; a personal habit of acting or speaking in a particular way.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., To Rdr. If the knack of borrowing, or robbing and pilfering rather, gets but a little further ground amongst us,… it will … be harder for an English-man to speak his own tongue without mingling others with it, than to speak a medly of sundry others without bringing in his own.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 31, ¶ 9. The Lady … has only, with a very brisk Air, a Knack of saying the commonest Things.
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1824), I. 160. I have got such a knack of writing, that when I am by myself, I cannot sit without a pen in my hand.
1861. Miss Braddon, Trail Serpent, I. v. The Sloshy has quite a knack of swelling and bursting.
3. concr. An ingenious contrivance; a toy, trinket, trifle, KNICK-KNACK. ? Obs.
1540. Heywood, Four P. P., in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 349. Needles, thread, thimble, shears, and all such knacks.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. iii. 67. Why ’tis a cockle or a walnut-shell, A knacke, a toy, a tricke, a babies cap Away with it.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm. (1683), II. vii. 104. Springs, and wheels, and such mechanick knacks.
1715. trans. C’tess D’Aunoy’s Wks., 557. A Thousand pretty Knacks … which she made with Fish-Bones and Shells, with Reeds and Rushes.
1825. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. Superannuated Man. All the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gew-gaws.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xiv. 360. The pedlar’s knacks and gaudy trash [Wint. T., IV. iv.] absorb Mopsa’s whole gloating vision.
† b. A choice dish; a delicacy, a dainty. Obs.
1548. Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Mark viii. 56. The knackes and junckettes of the Rhetoricians, the royall dishes of the Philosophers.
1592. Greene, Disc. Coosnage, III. 10. Hee wanted no ordinarie good fare, wine and other knackes.
1616. Surflet & Markh., Country Farme, 574. The flower of meale,… whereof the pasterers … doe make wafers, and such like daintie knackes.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., i. Wks. (1851), 283. (trans. Horace, Sat., I. i. 24) As some teachers give to Boyes Junkets and Knacks, that they may learne apace.
† c. An ingeniously contrived literary composition; a quaint device or conceit in writing. Obs.
1605. Camden, Rem., Rythmes, 26. Our Poets hath their knacks … as Ecchos, Achrostiches, Serpentine verses [etc.].
1641. Denham, Petit. to Five Members, 41. All those pretty knacks you compose—Alas! what are they but poems in prose?
1644. Bulwer, Chiron., 98. Ovid that grand Master of love knacks.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godl., X. xiii. 532. You … reproach them … that they have not taken up your Allegorical knacks.
4. local. = KIRN-BABY. See also NECK2.
1813. Ellis, Brand’s Pop. Antiq., I. 443, note. At Werington, in Devonshire,… when a farmer finishes his reaping, a small quantity of the ears of the last corn are twisted or tied together into a curious kind of figure,… which is called ‘a knack.’
5. attrib. and Comb., as knack-maker, -shop; † knack-hardy a., bold in the use of trickery.
1549. Coverdale, etc. Erasm. Par. 2 Pet. 18. They … contemne those that be set in public authoritie, being knacke hardie and shameless.
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1658), 783. Not one dare be so knack-hardy as to break into their friends and fellowes fence and enclosure.
1649. Mercurius Aulicus (Thomasson Tracts (B. M.) Vol. 438. No. 2. 14). Resolved by the supreme knack-makers that a knack be brought in for settling the college of Westminster.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Knacks, or Toies, a Knack-shop, or Toy-shop.
