elbow
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɛlbəʊ/
ipa: [ˈæwbɐw]
ipa: /ˈɛlboʊ/
ipa: [ˈɛɫboʊ]
rhymes: -ɛlbəʊ
Forms: form: elbows
Etymology: From Middle English elbowe, from Old English elboga, elnboga (“elbow”), from Proto-Germanic *alinabugô (“elbow”), equivalent to ell + bow. Cognate with Scots elbuck (“elbow”), Saterland Frisian Älbooge (“elbow”), Dutch elleboog (“elbow”), Low German Ellebage (“elbow”), German Ellbogen, Ellenbogen (“elbow”), Danish albue (“elbow”), Icelandic olbogi, olnbogi (“elbow”).
Senses: examples: text: Up to the elbowes naked were there Armes.
ref: 1627, Michael Drayton, “The Moone-Calfe”, in English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition, archived from the original on 19 Jul 2016:
text: Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ "I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."
ref: 1907, Robert W. Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set:
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
synonyms: elbow joint
glosses: The joint between the upper arm and the forearm.
examples: text: the sides of windows, where the jamb makes an elbow with the window back
text: The water runs down with a strong, sharp stickle, and then has a sudden elbow in it, where the small brook trickles in; and on that side the bank is steep, four or it may be five feet high, overhanging loamily; […]
ref: 1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor:
glosses: Any turn or bend like that of the elbow, in a wall, building, coastline, etc.; an angular or jointed part of any structure, such as the raised arm of a chair or sofa, or a short pipe fitting, turning at an angle or bent.
examples: text: "An elbow, huh?" putting all the contempt he could in his voice; and somehow any synonym for detective seems able to hold a lot of contempt.
ref: 1924, Dashiell Hammett, Zigzags of Treachery:
qualifier: early 20th-century slang
glosses: A detective.
topics: ball-games
basketball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Part of a basketball court located at the intersection of the free-throw line and the free-throw lane.
examples: text: In the fair dinkum department that elbow prop Barrie McDermott threw into the face of Paul Sironen deserved to get him four months on the side-lines[.]
ref: 1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 200:
text: England ran Tunisia ragged in that spell but were punished for missing a host of chances when Ferjani Sassi equalised from the penalty spot against the run of play after Kyle Walker was penalised for an elbow on Fakhreddine Ben Youssef.
ref: 2018 June 18, Phil McNulty, “Tunisia 1 – 2 England”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2019:
glosses: A hit, strike, or blow with the elbow.
qualifier: knots
glosses: Two nearby crossings of a rope.
Derived terms: all-elbows
at one's elbow
at the elbow
bend one's elbow
bump elbows
collar and elbow
crook one's elbow
elbow and collar
elbow bone
elbow bump
Elbow Cay
elbow chair
elbow-chair
elbow-deep
elbow dip
elbowedness
elbowful
Elbowgate
elbow grease
elbow juice
Elbow Lake
elbowless
elbowlike
elbow macaroni
elbow mentality
elbow pit
elbow plant
elbow relation
elbow room
elbowroom
elbow scissors
elbow shake
elbow sleeve
elbow tap
elbow to elbow
elbowy
get the elbow
give the elbow
golfer's elbow
hairy elbow syndrome
know one's arse from one's elbow
know one's ass from one's elbow
know the difference between one's ass and one's elbow
miner's elbow
more grease to your elbow
more power to your elbow
out-at-elbow
out at elbow
rub elbows
shake one's elbow
sharp-elbowed
street elbow
tennis elbow