• enPR: nēl, IPA: /niːl/

kneel (kneels, present participle kneeling; past and past participle knelt)

1. (intransitive) To rest on one's bent knees, sometimes only one; to move to such a position.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326 ↗:

     When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped ; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons.

2. (transitive) To cause to kneel.

   She knelt the doll to fit it into the box.

3. (reflexive, archaic) To rest on (one's) knees

   He knelt him down to pray.

• French: agenouiller
• German: knien
• Italian: inginocchiarsi
• Portuguese: ajoelhar-se
• Russian: преклоня́ться
• Spanish: arrodillarse