knab

• IPA^(key): /næb/
• Rhymes: -æb

See nab, and compare knap.

knab (third-person singular simple present knabs, present participle knabbing, simple past and past participle knabbed)

1. (colloquial) To nab or steal.
2. (obsolete) To seize with the teeth; to gnaw or bite.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     a Mouthful of Fresh Grass to Knab upon

• “knab”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

See nab, knob (in the sense of a rounded hill).

knab (plural knabs)

1. (chiefly Northumbria, archaic) A hill.
2. (Scotland, Shetland, Orkney) a promontory or headland

• Bank, bank, nabk

Pertaining to the group of words for thick objects with initial kn- such as knobbel, knoop, knuppel. Cognate with western German Knäppchen (“heel of bread”).

knab ? (plural knabben, diminutive knabbetje n)

1. (dialectal, parts of southern and eastern Netherlands) lump, thick piece (e.g. of wood or bread)