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Definition 2024


bee's_knees

the bee's knees

English

female carpenter bee's knee

Noun

the bee's knees (plural only)

  1. Used other than as an idiom: see bee, 's, knee. Corbiculae.
  2. (idiomatic, colloquial) Something or someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.
    We had strawberry shortcake for breakfast on Saturday and the kids thought it was the bee's knees.
    I used to play in a band when I was younger. We had a few fans and we thought we were the bee's knees.
    There is a new bee's knees every few minutes in New York.

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Translations

References

  1. Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, p. 45, Routledge, 1986 ISBN 041505916X.
  2. 1 2 Harry Oliver, Bees' Knees and Barmy Armies: Origins of the Words and Phrases We Use Every Day, John Blake Publishing Ltd, 2011 ISBN 1857829441
  3. Alison Westwood, The Little Book of Clichés, Canary Press eBooks ISBN 1907795138.
  4. 1 2 Robert Allen, Allen's Dictionary of English Phrases, Penguin UK, 2008 ISBN 0140515119.