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housemaid's knee

American

noun

Pathology.

inflammation of the bursa over the front of the kneecap.

housemaid's knee British

noun

Technical name: prepatellar bursitis. inflammation and swelling of the bursa in front of the kneecap, caused esp by constant kneeling on a hard surface

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of housemaid's knee

First recorded in 1825–35

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Retorted Mansfield: "If I pray any more, I'm going to have housemaid's knee."

From Time Magazine Archive

They were not to be confused with the socially less acceptable housemaid's knee, which is a bursitis.

From Time Magazine Archive

Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it.

From Three Men in a Boat by Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)

Mr. Seton declares that the rabbits of his park were "subject to all the ills of the flesh, except possibly writer's paralysis and housemaid's knee."

From Our Vanishing Wild Life Its Extermination and Preservation by Hornaday, William Temple

He never backed a horse that didn't get housemaid's knee in the middle of the race.

From The Man with Two Left Feet And Other Stories by Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023