Idiom
knuckle dragger
Meaning
A large, strong, and rather dimwitted person.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Don't listen to that knuckle dragger.”
“The bouncer at the club acted like a total knuckle dragger when he refused to listen to my explanation.”
“Despite his imposing stature, he was no mere knuckle dragger, but a man of surprising intellect and quiet sensitivity.”
Examples
simple
“Don't listen to that knuckle dragger.”
contextual
“The bouncer at the club acted like a total knuckle dragger when he refused to listen to my explanation.”
complex
“Despite his imposing stature, he was no mere knuckle dragger, but a man of surprising intellect and quiet sensitivity.”
Origin
The term is a 20th-century coinage, formed from an allusion to the locomotion of large primates. It references the evolutionary stage of walking on all fours with the knuckles positioned close to the ground, a posture suggestively applied to the gait of the less refined.
Key words
Related idioms
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