genuflect
verb
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Today we give reverence to genuflect, which comes from the Late Latin word genuflectere, formed from the noun genu ("knee") and the verb flectere ("to bend"). Flectere appears in the etymologies of a number of more common verbs, such as reflect ("to bend or throw back light") and deflect ("to turn aside"). By comparison genu has seen little use in English, but it did give us geniculate, a word used in scientific contexts to mean "bent abruptly at an angle like a bent knee." Despite the resemblance, words such as genius and genuine are not related to genuflect; instead, they are related (genius directly, and genuine indirectly) to the Latin verb gignere, meaning "to beget."
Examples of genuflect in a Sentence
Rachel Raposas, People.com, 26 June 2025
To embrace the we over me: • Be willing to genuflect.
—Dr. Eric George, Forbes.com, 11 Apr. 2025
After Zelenskyy wouldn’t genuflect, Trump got toadies Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz to ask the Ukrainian to leave.
—New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 28 Feb. 2025
Macron plans to use his visit to try to insert some steel in Trump’s spine following his latest round of genuflecting to Putin and will appeal to the US President’s highly advanced sense of his own power.
—Stephen Collinson, CNN, 22 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for genuflect
Cite this Entry
“Genuflect.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genuflect. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.
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genuflect
verb
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