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''knit'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''knit'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

knit - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Verb

knit (third-person singular simple present knits, present participle knitting, simple past and past participleknit or knitted)

  • (ambitransitive) To turn thread or yarn into a piece of fabric by forming loops that are pulled through each other. This can be done by hand with needles or by machine.
    • ✤ to knit a stocking
    • ✤ The first generation knitted to order; the second still knits for its own use; the next leaves knitting to industrial manufacturers.
    • ✤ I knitted swatches in a cable pattern to see how the different hapazome tachniques and yarn weights affected the appearance of the cables.1
  • (ambitransitive) To create a stitch by pulling the working yarn through an existing stitch from back to front.
    • ✤ Stitches that are knitted look like little V’s when seen from the front.
  • (figuratively, transitive) To join closely and firmly together.
    • ✤ The fight for survival knitted the men closely together.
    • ✤ Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
      Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
      To thee I send this written embassage,      2
    • ✤ And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.3
    • ✤ Come, knit hands, and beate the ground
      In a light fantastick round.      4
    • ✤ Nature cannot knit the bones while the parts are under a discharge.5
    • ✤ Her office there to rear, to teach,
      Becoming as is meet and fit
      A link among the days, to knit
      The generations each with each;      6
  • (intransitive) To become closely and firmly joined; become compacted.
  • (intransitive) To grow together.
    • ✤ All those seedlings knitted into a kaleidoscopic border.
  • (transitive) To combine from various elements.
    • ✤ The witness knitted together his testimony from contradictory pieces of hearsay.
  • (intransitive, of bones) To heal following a fracture.
    • ✤ I’ll go skiing again after my bones knit.
  • (transitive) To form into a knot, or into knots; to tie together, as cord; to fasten by tying.
    • ✤ When your head did but ache,
      I knit my handkercher about your brows,      7
    • ✤ [He] saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending upon him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners […]8
  • (transitive) To draw together; to contract into wrinkles.
    • ✤ But meet him now, and be it in the Morne,/When euery one will giue the time of day,/He knits his Brow and ſhewes an angry Eye,/And paſſeth by with ſtiffe vnbowed Knee,/Diſdaining dutie that to vs belongs.9

Noun

knit (plural knits)

  • A knitted garment.
    • ✤ There are grey Grecian tops and a light, sheer, silver cardigan. Stylish dark grey tailored trousers, silver thongs and shiny jet-black stilettos. Black sheer blouses with squared bib fronts, and expensive-looking black and dark grey woollen knits.10
  • A session of knitting.
    • ✤ It’s always time for a bit of a knit.11

Etymology

From Middle English knytten, from Old English cnyttan (“to fasten, tie, bind, knit; add, append”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡knuttijan, from Proto-Germanic ﹡knutjaną, ﹡knuttijaną (“to make knots, knit”).

Cognate with Low German knütten and Old Norse knýta (whence Danish knytte, Norwegian Nynorsk knyta). More at knot.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /nɪt/
  • Audio (Received Pronunciation): 🔊
  • Homophone: nit
  • Rhymes: -ɪt

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 2026, Stefanie Johnson, “Speckles and Tonals”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 53: ↩

  2. 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 26”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 18:1: ↩

  4. 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC, page 6: ↩

  5. 1672, Richard Wiseman, A Treatise of Wounds ‎, London: Richard Royston: ↩

  6. 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXIX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 60: ↩

  7. c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]: ↩

  8. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 10:11: ↩

  9. 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 130, column 2: ↩

  10. 2012, Melanie Calvert, Freycinet, page 105: ↩

  11. 2014, Elvira Woodruff, To Knit or Not to Knit: ↩

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