# knight
## English

* This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!

### Pronunciation

* enPR: nīt, IPA: /naɪt/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪt
* Homophones: night, nite

### Etymology 1

From Middle English knight, knyght, kniht, from Old English cniht (“boy; servant, knight”), from Proto-West Germanic *kneht.

#### Alternative forms

* knyght (obsolete)

#### Noun

knight (plural knights)
* (historical) A young servant or follower; a trained military attendant in service of a lord.
** 2001, Michael S. Drake, Problematics of Military Power: Government, Discipline and the Subject of Violence, →ISBN, page 97:Not all knights held fiefs, and it was not unusual for knights to buy themselves freedom from the obligations of the fief, or even to abscond with the arms provided by their lord, becoming a part of the large number of unenfeoffed, wandering knights available for hire […]
* (historical) A minor nobleman with an honourable military rank who had served as a page and squire.
* (by extension) An armored and mounted warrior of the Middle Ages.
    King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
** 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 54:There are two tombs, each bearing effigies of a knight and his lady. One is 14th century, the other 15th century. The earlier knight wears chain mail and his lady has long, flowing hair. The later knight has plate armour, and his wife wears a wimple.
* (law, historical) A person obliged to provide knight service in exchange for maintenance of an estate held in knight's fee.
* (modern) A person on whom a knighthood has been conferred by a monarch.
* (literary) A brave, chivalrous and honorable man devoted to a noble cause or love interest.
* (chess) A chess piece, often in the shape of a horse's head, that is moved two squares in one direction and one at right angles to that direction in a single move, leaping over any intervening pieces.
* (card games, dated) A playing card bearing the figure of a knight; the knave or jack.
* (Can we verify this sense?) (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Ypthima.
    Hyponym: dusky knight
* (modern) Any mushroom belonging to genus Tricholoma.
* A species of nymphalid butterfly, Lebadea martha, found in tropical and subtropical Asia.

##### Synonyms

* (chess piece): horse (informal)

##### Hyponyms

* knight banneret, banneret

##### Coordinate terms

* knight's fee, knight service

##### Derived terms

* ale-knight
* ashen knight (Tricholoma virgatum)
* belted knight
* birch knight (Tricholoma fulvum)
* bitter knight (Tricholoma acerbum)
* black knight
* blue-spot knight (Tricholoma columbetta)
* booted knight (Tricholoma focale)
* burnt knight (Tricholoma ustale)
* carpet knight
* chemical knight (Tricholoma stiparophyllum)
* Dark Knight
* dark-scaled knight (Tricholoma atrosquamosum)
* deceiving knight (Tricholoma sejunctum)
* dusky knight (Ypthima arctous)
* Four Knights Game
* giant knight (Tricholoma colossus)
* girdled knight (Tricholoma cingulatum)
* gray knight, grey knight (Tricholoma terreum)
* imperial knight
* knight adventurer
* knight adventurous
* knightage
* Knight Bachelor, knight bachelor
* knight-bairn
* knight-banneret
* knight banneret
* knight baronet
* knight brother
* knight caligate
* knight caligate of arms
* knight-cross
* knight-errant
* knight errant
* knight-errantry
* knight-erratic
* knightess
* knightfully
* knight-head
* knighthood
* knightify
* knight in shining armor, knight in shining armour
* knightless
* knightling
* knightly
* knightmare
* knight marshal
* Knight Marshal, knight-marshal
* knight-money
* knight of adventurers
* knight of arms
* Knight of Grace
* knight of industry, knight of the industry
* Knight of Justice
* Knight of Malta
* Knight of Parliament
* Knight of Rhodes
* knight of St Crispin
* Knight of St John
* Knight of the Bath
* knight of the blade
* knight of the brush
* knight of the carpet
* knight of the chamber
* knight of the cleaver
* knight of the collar
* Knight of the Commonty
* knight of the cue
* knight of the elbow
* knight of the field
* Knight of the Garter
* knight of the grammar
* knight of the green baize
* knight of the green cloth
* knight of the hammer
* knight of the knife
* knight of the needle
* knight of the order of the fork
* knight of the pen
* knight of the pencil
* knight of the pestle
* knight of the post
* knight of the quill
* knight of the rainbow
* knight of the road
* Knight of the Round Table
* Knight of the Rueful Countenance
* knight of the shears
* Knight of the Shire
* knight of the shire
* knight of the spigot
* Knight of the Spur
* knight of the square flag
* knight of the stick
* knight of the thimble
* Knight of the Thistle
* knight of the vapour
* knight of the wheel
* knight of the whip
* knight of the whipping-post
* Knight of Windsor
* Knightsbridge
* knight's cross
* knight service
* knight-service
* knight's fee
* knightship
* knight's milfoil (Achillea millefolium)
* knight's move
* Knights of Columbus
* Knights of Labor
* Knights of Pythias
* knight's pondwort
* knight's progress
* knight's star
* knight's water-sengreen
* knight's wort
* knight's woundwort (Achillea millefolium)
* Knight Templar
* knight wager
* knight-weed
* knight-wife
* knightwise
* lance-knight
* learning-knight
* matt knight (Tricholoma imbricatum)
* Military Knight of Windsor
* Naval Knights of Windsor
* orange knight (Tricholoma aurantium)
* poplar knight (Tricholoma populinum)
* scaly knight (Tricholoma vaccinum)
* scented knight (Tricholoma apium)
* silver knight
* silver knight (Psaltoda plaga)
* soapy knight (Tricholoma saponaceum)
* sulphur knight (Tricholoma sulphureum)
* Tolleshunt Knights
* upright knight (Tricholoma stans)
* white knight
* white-knight
* yellowing knight (Tricholoma argyraceum, syn. Tricholoma sculpturatum)
* yellow knight (Tricholoma equestre)

##### See also

Chess pieces in English · chess pieces, chessmen (see also: chess) (layout · text) :
| king | queen | rook, castle | bishop | knight | pawn |
* Appendix:Chess pieces

### Etymology 2

From Middle English knighten, kniȝten, from the noun. Cognate with Middle High German knehten.

#### Verb

knight (third-person singular simple present knights, present participle knighting, simple past and past participle knighted)
* (transitive) To confer knighthood upon.
    Synonym: beknight
    The king knighted the young squire.
** 1971, Clayton C. Barbeau, Future of the family:Highborn boys were sent off to another noble household at the age of about seven, to serve strenuously as pages and later as esquires to their lord before they themselves were knighted, looked around for a "lady" and incidentally got married and produced more knightlets, whom they never got to know at all well.
* (chess, transitive) To promote (a pawn) to a knight.

##### Synonyms

* dub

##### Derived terms

* knighted
* knighting

##### Translations
### See also

* paladin
* baronet

### References

* “knight”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

## Middle English
### Noun

knight
* Alternative form of knyght