knave
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: nāv
ipa: /neɪv/
rhymes: -eɪv
homophone: nave
Forms: form: knaves
Etymology: From Middle English knave, knafe, from Old English cnafa (“child, boy, youth; servant”), from Proto-West Germanic *knabō. Cognate to Dutch knaap and German Knabe.
Senses: glosses: A boy; especially, a boy servant.
examples: text: Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave that, doting on his own obsequious bondage, wears out his time, much like his master's ass, For naught but provender, and when he's old – cashier'd! Whip me such honest knaves.
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
glosses: Any male servant; a menial.
examples: text: I could plainly diſcover from whence one Family derives a long Chin; why a ſecond hath abounded with Knaves for two Generations, and Fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be Sharpers.
ref: 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Further Account of Glubbdubdrib. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 108:
text: He was a man whom scarcely any amount of fortune could have benefited permanently, and who was made to be ruined, to cheat small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful knave.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 44, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
text: I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.
ref: 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter II, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: God's bones! Whenever I go to beat those knaves / my tapsters, out she [my wife] comes with clubs and staves, / "Go on!" she screams — and it's a caterwaul — / "You kill those dogs! Break back and bones and all!"
ref: 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 204:
synonyms: word: rogue
word: villain
word: antimodel
word: bad guy
word: baddie
word: bastard
word: blackguard
word: bounder
word: cad
word: coistril
word: evildoer
word: fustilarian
word: harlot
word: heavy
word: knave
word: lidderon
word: makeshift
word: miscreant
word: ne'er-do-well
word: niding
word: nithing
word: rapscallion
word: rascal
word: rogue
word: scab
word: scamp
word: scapegrace
word: scoundrel
word: scum
word: scumbag
word: thug
word: undesirable
word: varlet
word: villain
glosses: A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person.
topics: card-games
games
synonyms: jack
;
mul:J
glosses: A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or a soldier.
Derived terms: beknave
knave bairn
knave of clubs
knave of diamonds
knave of hearts
knave of spades
knaveproof
knavery
knaveship
knavess
knavish