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Knickerbocker.

A surname from Dutch.

13 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈnɪkɚbɑkɚ/US
  1. A surname from Dutch.

  2. A New Yorker, particularly a scion of its old Dutch families

    archaic · historical
  3. A player for the New York Knicks

    uncommon
  4. A player for the New York Knickerbockers

    historical
Where this word comes from

From Diedrich Knickerbocker, the pseudonym adopted by Washington Irving for his 1809 A History of New York, probably for the Knickerbackers of Schaghticoke, New York, descended from the Dutch immigrant Harmen Jansen van Bommel(l), who went variously by the names van Wy(y)e, van Wyekycback(e), Kinnekerbacker, Knickelbacker, Knickerbacker, Kinckerbacker, Nyckbacker, and Kynckbacker. The surname is of uncertain etymology, being variously explained as a corruption of Wyekycback, Dutch knacker (“cracker”) + German Bäcker, Dutch bakker (“baker”), or Dutch knicker (“marble (toy)”) + German Bäcker, Dutch bakker.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.