Word Confusion: Knee versus Née

Plural for the noun: knees
Gerund: kneeing

Third person present verb: knees
Past tense or past participle: kneed
Present participle: kneeing

• [Zoology] The corresponding or analogous joint in other animals
• Stifle
• A person’s lap
• The part of a garment covering the knee
• An angled piece of wood or metal frame used to connect and support the beams and timbers of a wooden vessel
• A triangular plate used to connect and support the beams in a modern vessel
• An abrupt obtuse or approximately right-angled bend in a graph between parts where the slope varies smoothly

A joint or region likened to this but not anatomically homologous with it, as the tarsal joint of a bird, the carpal joint in a four-footed vertebrate, etc.

The part of a garment covering the knee

[Building Trades] The junction of the top and either of the uprights of a bent

[Building Trades] A curved member for reinforcing the junction of two pieces meeting at an angle

[Botany] A rounded or conical process rising from the roots of various swamp-growing trees

[Furniture; a.k.a. hip, shoulder] The inward curve toward the top of a cabriole leg

[A.k.a. kneeler, kneestone] A stone cut to follow a sharp return angle

Verb, intransitive:
[Obsolete] To go down on the knees

• Kneel

Verb, transitive:
Hit (someone) with one’s knee

To strike or touch with the knee

To secure (a structure, as a bent) with a knee

[Archaic] To bend the knee to

• Formerly known as

Born

The players took a knee before the game.

“In quadrupeds such as dogs, horses, and mice, the homologous joints between the femur, tibia, and patella, in the hind leg, are known as the stifle joint” (Knee).

She sat on my knee.

They were eating their supper on their knees.

She was wearing an old pair of pants with rips at the knees.

“Bent knees are formed by plasticizing the wood to make it flexible via boiling, steaming, or microwaving (for small components)” (Construction).

Beam knees are triangular steel plates secured between beams or half-beams and the side frames, compensating for racking stresses and localized stresses from heavyweights” (Shipboard).

“The algorithm ‘Kneedle’ detects those beneficial data points showing the best balance inherent tradeoffs — called ‘knees’ . . . or sometimes “elbows” . . . — in discrete data sets based on the mathematical definition of curvature for continuous functions” (Kleine).

A bird’s knee joint points forward and is hidden within the feathers.

We’ll need a knee wall to support those rafters.

Knees were used to reinforce potentially weak areas adjacent to hatches, bitts, masts, etc.

Baldcypress knees are thought to provide stability in the face of the stresses of gravity and wind without having a deep root system.

The upper outward curve of a cabriolet leg is referred to as the knee.

Similar to ship’s knees, a knee used in the building trade supports a sloped gable.

Verb, intransitive:
He kneeled before His Majesty.

In his surrender, he kneed to the conqueror.

Verb, transitive:
She kneed him in the groin.

John, knee that hatch in place.

Kneeing himself, he surrendered.

The widow of JFK, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, née Bouvier, married Aristotle Onassis in 1968.

His wife, Attracta O’Malley, née Moffitt, was born and raised in Charlestown.

Nora, née Conway, was born in Kilnock, Brickens, and emigrated to America in her young years.

Né is the masculine past participle of naître.