Here we go again, dear readers! More Tuesday Tricksters (aka homophones) to delight and bedevil us (if we’re not carefully reading what we wrote, that is). These words have the power to make any one of us look bad, so I hope we are not just trusting spellcheck to keep us looking as smart as we are!
Knead (v.): to massage something with your hands (knead bread dough)
Kneed (adj.): having knees; (v.): past tense of “to knee,” hit or strike using the knee
Need (v.): to desire or require; (n.): a desire or requirement
Knew (v.): past tense of “to know”
Gnu (n.): an African antelope
New (adj.): not old
Nu (inter.): Yiddish for “So?”
Knight (n.): an honorary title; a defender, champion, or zealous upholder of a cause or principle
Night (n.): the opposite of day; the dark time
Knit (v.): to create by joining together interconnecting loops of yarn or thread in rows of stitches
Nit (n.): the egg of a louse
Knob (n.): a rounded protuberance; a rounded handle, as on a drawer or door; a prominent rounded hill or mountain
Nob (n.): (slang) the human head; (chiefly British slang) a person of wealth or social standing; (biblical) a place, north of Jerusalem, whose inhabitants were massacred by Saul.
Check out www.yourdictionary.com for more definitions of these words.
Were any of these words new to you? I had NO idea that Nob was a city in the bible; did you?