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Fort Knox

Fort Knox

2 7.0
A place or thing like a locked safe that is very secure and hard to get into
  • noun
  • /fɔrt nɑks/
translation icon : Fort Knox
  • Currently, Ron Paul is working on a bill to audit Fort Knox.

Examples

  • We turned our home into a place as secure as Fort Knox to protect our valuables.

  • If you explode it in Fort Knox, the entire gold supply of the United States will be radioactive for 57 years.

  • This is my bank, the gold depository at Fort Knox, gentlemen.

  • Nobody has ever seen the gold in Fort Knox in the last 40 years because it is so secretive.

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  • "We were targeting Kentucky the whole time because of Fort Knox and Fort Campbell.

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  • But bringing it to Fort Knox undetected could be risky, very risky.

  • Rob currently serves in the U.S. Army as a public affairs noncommissioned officer stationed at Fort Knox, KY.

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  • Digging gold out of the ground only to hide it back underground in a vault such as that at Fort Knox is one of the stupidest things people do.

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  • We here at the Bank of England, Mr. Bond, are the official depository for gold bullion just as Fort Knox, Kentucky, is for the United States.

  • Guarded like the gold in Fort Knox is supposed to be (but actually isn't), and we have verifiable counts done under the watchful eye of members of all interested parties; we will never have failed elections again.

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Synonyms

vault
vsFort Knox
238 4.8

A strong locked room or digital place for keeping valuable things safe

is used figuratively to mean extremely secure and hard to access
depository
vsFort Knox
26 5.9

A safe place where people keep documents or other valuable items

has stronger sense of total inaccessibility and is often figurative
bank vault
vsFort Knox
10 3.5

A strong, secure room in a bank that holds money, valuable things, and important papers

is used as a figurative name for anything nearly impossible to access
treasury
vsFort Knox
8 4.6

A room or building where people keep money and valuable things safe

is a figurative label stressing extreme protection rather than official custody
safehold
vsFort Knox
8.8

A protected place where people hide to be safe from attack

focuses on extreme physical security for objects rather than sheltering people

How Secure

Fort Knox
2 7.0
fortress
106 4.4
gated
23 4.1
penal facility
  • Formal
1 6.0
unguarded
11 5.2

Surface Forms

Fort Knox singular
Fort Knoxes plural

Morphology

fort + Knox

The constituent 'fort' clearly signals a fortified, secure place so a learner who knows the words could infer a general sense of security. However, 'Knox' is a proper name and the specific idiomatic meaning 'extremely secure' depends on cultural knowledge of the US site rather than purely compositional meaning, so the expression is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Fort Knox comes from a real American fort called Knox, where a huge amount of the country's gold was kept behind thick walls and many guards in a strong vault. So people call any place or system 'very secure' or hard to get into a Fort Knox.