kneecap

The flat, roundish bone in the knee.

A metal cover trim that fits over a panel rib after it has been cut and bent.

A cap or strong covering for the knees, used chiefly for horses, to protect their knees in case of a fall.

To destroy the knees of (a person), usually by shooting at the knees, as a punishment carried out by criminals or terrorists.

The Sinn Féin press officer Richard McAuley freely admitted, “Back four or five years ago, people were getting kneecapped who should not have been kneecapped.”

To attack (someone) in a way that is excessively and needlessly damaging: To cut (someone) off at the knees.

This story of how American originality lost its way is arresting and well told. On an alternate timeline without Donald Trump in office dismantling the American scientific establishment and Elon Musk kneecapping the American state, it might have been the manifesto of a new politics.