A knack is the trick of doing something easily and well. Get the knack, have a knack for it, lose the knack.
It is skill that cannot easily be explained — you get the knack rather than learn it, and demonstrating is more use than describing. Have a knack for something means a natural aptitude. The k is silent. Note that a knack is smaller than a talent and more specific than a skill, and that the word is used most about physical tasks: opening a stiff window, lighting a difficult stove.
1nounknackThe trick of doing something easily and well.
“My grandmother has a knack for making people feel welcome.”
knack is a practical skill.
Middle English knak meant a sharp sound or a clever trick, probably imitative. The sense of a deft touch grew from the trick, and the silent k is the same one in knife and knee.
Middle English
krak
English, today
knack
Built from
Late Middle English -, use as "special skill" from 1580. Possibly from 14th century Middle English krak, knack (“a sharp sound or blow”), knakke, knakken, from Middle Low German - and of imitative of the sound origin, similar to Dutch knak (“snap, crack”). Latter cognate to German knacken (“to crack”). See also crack.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire