Dictionary

genuflection en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin genuflexio, though with standardized spelling. By surface analysis, genuflect (“to bend the knee”) + -ion (Latinate abstract-noun suffix).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The act of genuflecting.
   • Certain business titans have made Mar-A-Lago a scene of such flagrant self-abnegation, ring-kissing, and genuflection that it would embarrass a medieval Pope. 2025 January 12, David Remnick, “The Inauguration of Trump's Oligarchy”, in The New Yorker:
   • Those impious Pigs, Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn The settled Swellfoot system, or to make Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipt Into a loyal and an orthodox whine. 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

Forms

Translations (22)

is knéfall (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · de Kniefall (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · is knébeyging (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · pl klękanie (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · ro genuflexiune (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · pt genuflexão (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · fr génuflexion (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · be кле́нчанне (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · ga umhlú (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · uk колінопреклоні́ння (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · fi polvistuminen (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · de Niederknien (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · pl uklęknięcie (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · el γονυκλισία (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · nl kniebuiging (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · ru коленопреклоне́ние (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · la genuflexio (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · it genuflessione (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · bg колени́чене (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · de Kniebeuge (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · es genuflexión (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down) · ro genuflexare (the act of genuflecting, in the sense of bowing down)