Not tempting fate
After saying something hopeful — "I have never been ill" — knocking on wood stops the words from being overheard and reversed.
Speech superstition
Knocking on wood
Knocking on wood: said after tempting fate, to cancel it. First recorded: 19th century in its current form. That makes it a 19th-century belief — joint 38th oldest of the 45 superstitions we have dated.
- Earliest record
- 19th century in its current form
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
19th century in its current form
That makes it
a 19th-century belief
Rank by age
Joint 38th oldest of 45 dated here
Category
Speech
Usually traced to pre-Christian belief in spirits living in trees, but the documented trail is much shorter — the phrase and the gesture appear together only from the 1800s, possibly from a children's chasing game called Tiggy Touchwood.
37 of the dated superstitions here were written down earlier and 6 later, while one shares its date.
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The versions people follow
What exactly is believed
Waking the tree spirits
A popular explanation, though a late one, says knocking once called on spirits living in trees for protection.
Touch wood
In Britain the saying is "touch wood", and simply touching a wooden surface is enough.
Knocking three times
Many people knock three times, and some knock on their own head when no wood is near.
Where it lives today
Research on tempting fate has found that knocking on wood, or throwing salt, lowers people's sense that a bad outcome is coming — an action that "pushes away" the jinx.
What people say
Said after tempting fate, to cancel it.What is going on
One of the few superstitions performed openly by people who describe themselves as skeptics, which makes it more a verbal reflex than a belief.Where it applies. Almost universal in Europe; in some countries the phrase exists without the knock.
Other speech superstitions
Nearest in age
Knocking on wood is joint 38th oldest of the 45 dated superstitions here. Of those, 3 date from 1900 or later and 14 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Knocking on Wood Superstition: Origin and Meaning.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/superstitions/knocking-on-wood/
For Wikipedia
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