From Middle English _knelen_, _knewlen_, from Old English _cnēowlian_ (“to kneel”), equivalent to _knee_ +‎ _-le_. Cognate with Dutch _knielen_ (“to kneel”), Low German _knelen_ (“to kneel”), German dialectal _knielen_, _kneulen_, _knülen_ (“to kneel”), Danish _knæle_ (“to kneel”).

* enPR: nēl, IPA(key): /niːl/ * Rhymes: -iːl * Homophones: Neal, Neil, Niel

KNEEL (_third-person singular simple present_ KNEELS, _present participle_ KNEELING, _simple past and past participle_ KNELT _or_ KNEELED) * (intransitive) To stoop down and rest on the knee or knees. * 1907, Robert W. Chambers, chapter III, _The Younger Set_: When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped ; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs KNEELING on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons. DERIVED TERMS * kneeler RELATED TERMS * genuflect * kneel down TRANSLATIONS

* kneel in _The Century Dictionary_, The Century Co., New York, 1911 * kneel in _Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary_, G. & C. Merriam, 1913