bare knuckle

English

Adjective

bare knuckle (comparative more bare knuckle, superlative most bare knuckle)

1. Alternative form of bare-knuckle
   1. Without boxing gloves
      • 2008, Waysun "Johnny" Tsai, Paula Lazarz, Practical Kung-Fu Street Defense, →ISBN:

        As a former four-time bare knuckle UFC veteran, and MMA veteran Hall of Fame coach of the year, I know they are effective and valuable to any person as a form of self defense, whether experienced or novice.

      • 2008, Peter Hall, Do You Want to Go to Jail Today?, →ISBN, page 142:

        I crave the softness of human touch, rather than the bone-crushing feel of bare knuckle fighting.

      • 2012, Craig Paterson, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Natural Law Ethics Approach, →ISBN:

        The skill demonstrated in, for example, bare knuckle boxing is not a compelling reason to accept the risk of permanent damage to oneself or another.

   2. Ruthlessly competitive
      • 1996, Extra! - Volumes 9-10, page 6:

        But aggressive management maneuvers like that were missing from the paper's speculations (10/25/95) about labor's return to "bare knuckle tactics."

      • 2012, Christian Schierenbeck, Fixing Higher Education, →ISBN:

        This raises a third and final question: How should basic research be saved in a world of bare knuckle competition?

      • 2018, Peter Forsyth, Competition versus Predation in Aviation Markets, →ISBN:

        Indeed, to understand airline predation, one might ask Vanguard, Sun Jet International and Western Pacific (all named in the case as suffering from American's actions) whether they felt the sting of that bare knuckle competition.

Verb

bare knuckle (third-person singular simple present bare knuckles, present participle bare knuckling, simple past and past participle bare knuckled)

1. Alternative form of bare-knuckle
   • 1990, Margaret Skinner, Old Jim Canaan: a novel, page 56:

     Let 'um come out to play in the alley and we'll bare knuckle the bastards to hell and back.

   • 2005, John Lucas, Poetry: The Nottingham Collection, →ISBN, page 123:

     Lately I'm bare knuckling again, you know no man can take me, I dare say you'll be much the same.