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A knuckle tattoo is a kind of tattoo on the tops of a person's fingers, between the knuckles, commonly two groups of four-letter words or one eight-letter word. It is not necessarily a prison tattoo, as sometimes believed, but remains an unpopular form of tattoo—alongside hand tattoos in general—due to the difficulty of hiding it in situations such as a formal setting where it would be seen as crass. Some people also use their knuckles to tattoo drawings and images, sometimes in groups of four, such as the four symbols of a deck of playing cards.

Examples

Robert Mitchum's character Reverend Harry Powell wears LOVE / HATE in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter.

In The Blues Brothers, the main characters have JAKE / ELWO/OD on their knuckles.

Musician Flea wears LOVE / LOVE. Professional wrestler CM Punk wears DRUG / FREE.

In sailor tattoo traditions, deckhands may get HOLD / FAST as a charm to support their grip on rigging.

References

1. Schonberger, Nick (8 December 2011). "Hate Or Love? The 10 Best Knuckle Tattoos". Complex.com. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
2. Hudson, Karen L. "Why Many Tattoo Artists Refuse to Tattoo Hands, Feet, and Faces". About.com. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
3. DeMello, Margo (2014-05-30). "Knuckle Tattoos". Inked: Tattoos and Body Art around the World: . Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-10279-3.
4. Richards, Sam (10 January 2014). "A brief history of knuckle tattoos". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
5. "Marked men: 26-plus bad-ass characters with memorable tattoos". The A.V. Club. 2010-05-24. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
6. Gomez, Luis (March 26, 2012). "Interview: Behind the snarl of CM Punk". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
7. Triezenberg, Julia (January 8, 2021). "Weekend Break: Historical maritime tattoos". The Astorian. Retrieved 2022-06-09.

External links

• The Knuckle Tattoo Project
• Dubuddha knuckle tattoos gallery

• Tattooing by body part