WEBEnglish The letter usually represents /k/ in English. It is silent when it comes before n at the start of a stem, e.g.: At the start of a word (knight, knife, knot, know, and knee)After a prefix (unknowable)In compounds (penknife)English is now the only Germanic language to productively use "hard" c (outside the digraph ck ) rather than k (although Dutch uses it …