genuflect
/ˈd͡ʒɛn.jʊ.flɛkt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.71 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "At high Mass the deacon and subdeacon stand on either side, genuflect too, and answer."
- "First you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries, / Bow your head with great respect, and / genuflect, genuflect, genuflect."
- "She took the holy water on her fingertips and made the sign of the cross, fleetingly touched her wet fingertips to her parched lips. Candles flickered redly before the saints, the Christ on his cross. Kay genuflected before entering her row and then knelt on the hard wooden rail of the pew to wait for her call to Communion."
- "Certainly, the megalomaniacs who aim to populate municipal fixtures with registered-trademark logos will expect cities to genuflect at every turn."
Etymology
PIE word *ǵónu From around 1620–1630 from Medieval Latin genūflectō (“to bend the knee”) equivalent to the Latin genū (“knee”) + flectō (“to bend”).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: genūflectō, genū
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈd͡ʒɛn.jʊ.flɛkt/
- British English: /ˈd͡ʒɛn.jʊ.flɛkt/