knee-cap
(ˈniːkæp)
[f. knee n. + cap.]
1. A cap or protective covering for the knee; spec., a genouillère.
| 1660 Survey Arm. Tower Lond. in Archæologia XI. 98 Cushes, Knee capps. 1827 Scott Jrnl. 23 Jan., I have got a piece of armour, a knee-cap of chamois leather. 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Knee-cap, a cover or protection for the knee of a stumbling horse. 1860 Fairholt Costume Eng. (ed. 2) 128 Small plates of metal also begin to appear at the elbows and knees... The knee-caps were styled genouillères. 1884 Mil. Engineering (ed. 3) I. ii. 72, 4 pairs of knee-caps. 1886 T. Hardy Mayor Casterbr. iv, Thatcher's knee-caps, ploughman's leggings. |
b. (Surgical.) A water- or ice-bag for topical appliances to the knee.
| 1884 in Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl. |
2. The convex bone in front of the knee-joint; the patella, knee-pan.
| 1869 Huxley Elem. Phys. (ed. 3) 186 The ligament of the knee-cap, or patella. 1884 Bosanquet tr. Lotze's Metaph. 506 If we touch any part of the skin that is stretched above a bone, whether it be the forehead, the knee-cap, or the heel, feelings are..aroused which have a common tone. |
Hence kneecap v. trans., to shoot a person in the knee (or leg) as a form of punishment; so kneecapping vbl. n.
| 1975 Daily Tel. 12 Aug. 2/7 Man ‘kneecapped’ in Carrickfergus. 1975 Observer 8 June 4/3 Ulster's gunmen have found they can get hold of Government cash by giving victims a ‘knee-capping’—their grim colloquialism for a bullet in the legs... Kneecapping..has replaced tarring and feathering as the province's most common form of terrorist punishment... ‘This so-called kneecapping is really a misnomer, because the kneecap itself is rarely touched.’ |