Meaning
To settle down to serious, disciplined effort on a task, often after delay, distraction or half-hearted attempts. It implies a deliberate shift into hard work rather than natural diligence, and is typically used about study, work or training, either to urge someone on or to describe one's own change of pace. Informal but not slangy, and usually bracing or encouraging rather than critical of the person working. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The phrase comes from the playground game of marbles, whose rules required a shooter to keep at least one knuckle on the ground when flicking the taw, or shooter marble, so that everyone took a fair shot. The earliest known record is Dyche and Pardon's dictionary of 1740, which glosses 'Knuckle down to your taw' as words 'used by lads at a play called taw'. The same 1740 work records a second sense, to stoop, bend, yield or submit, which survives separately as the distinct idiom 'knuckle under' rather than in today's phrase. The modern figurative meaning of applying oneself earnestly to work was established by 1864, when Webster's dictionary defined it in exactly those terms. The literal marbles usage lives on within the game itself, even though the game has largely faded from playgrounds.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- knuckle down and get on with it
- knuckle down to something
- knuckled down
- knuckling down
Usage Examples
- With exams starting in April, she knuckled down to a strict revision timetable and cut her gaming to an hour a night.
- If the repairs are to be finished before the rains come, the crew will have to knuckle down this month.
- Knuckling down to the backlog of orders, the small team cleared it inside a fortnight.