How many knuckles are there in a human hand?

The knuckles are the joints of the fingers and thumbs of the hand. The word is cognate to similar words in other Germanic languages, such as the Dutch "knokkel" (knuckle) or German "Knöchel" (ankle), i.e., "Knöchlein", the diminutive of the German word for bone ("Knochen").

Anatomically, it is said that the knuckles consist of the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) and interphalangeal (IP) joints of the finger. The knuckles at the base of the fingers may be referred to as the 1st or major knuckles while the knuckles at the midfinger are known as the 2nd and 3rd, or minor, knuckles. However, the ordinal terms are used inconsistently and may refer to any of the knuckles.

Each finger has three knuckle joints and each thumb has two. Each hand has four fingers and one thumb therefore the hand has fourteen knuckles.