subs. (old).—See quot.
1781. G. PARKER, A View of Society. ‘KNUCKLE in the flash language signifies those who hang about the lobbies of both Houses of Parliament, the Opera-House, and both Play-Houses, and in general wherever a great crowd assemble. They steal watches, snuff-boxes etc.’
Verb. (thieves’).—1. To fight with fists; to pummel.
2. (thieves’).—To pick pockets: applied especially to the more refined or artistic branch of the art, i.e., extracting notes or money from the waistcoat, or breeches pockets, whereas ‘buzzing’ is used in a more general sense.—DE VAUX (1819). Also TO GO ON THE KNUCKLE.
1754. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter, p. 43, s.v.
TO KNUCKLE (KNUCKLE DOWN TO or KNUCKLE UNDER), verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. See quots.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). KNUCKLE-DOWN (v.) to stoop, bend, yield, comply with, or submit to.
c. 1794. WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Ode to Tyrants, in Works (Dublin), v. ii. p. 526.
| TO KNUCKLE DOWN to Jove, | |
| And pray the gods to send an emp’ror down. | |
| Ibid., The Rights of Kings. | |
| Poor gentlemen! how hard, alas! their fate, | |
| TO KNUCKLE TO such nuisances of state! |
1846. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, II. vii. So he KNUCKLED DOWN, again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable overtures to Osborne.
1860. Chambers’s Journal, XIII. p. 289. Considering how he has talked scoffingly of Benedict’s KNUCKLING UNDER and being second best and of some one having always the whiphand of him and so on.
1869. BLACKMORE, Lorna Doone, liv. When the upperhand is taken upon the faith of one’s patience by a man of even smaller wits … why it naturally happens that we KNUCKLE UNDER with an ounce of indignation.
1888. Daily Chronicle, 31 Dec. He KNUCKLED UNDER to the last-named at the second time of asking.
1888. BOLDREWOOD, Robbery under Arms, xxxvii. I wouldn’t KNUCKLE DOWN to you like some of them.
2. (colloquial).—To apply oneself earnestly; to engage vigorously.
