knee-jerking

noun

Reacting instantaneously and without thought.

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Meanings

nounknee-jerking (uncountable)
  1. uncountableReacting instantaneously and without thought.

    How much of the positive response was liberal knee-jerking to be forgotten the next day?

    1974 April 6, Linda Thurston, “U.S. Civil Rights Conference―Heterosexuals Only”, in Gay Community News, page 5
    1 more example

    I think it was Haidt who used Kahneman’s two systems view to say that we quickly rise to judgments based on unconscious gut reads and then “reason” to concoct or confabulate an after the fact justification for our “moral” kneejerking.

    2020 June 24, *Hemidactylus*, “absolute morality”, in talk.origins (Usenet)
Cite this entry
APA

knee-jerking. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/knee-jerking

MLA

“knee-jerking.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/knee-jerking. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “knee-jerking,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/knee-jerking.

Source: knee-jerking on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.