KNAVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Knave

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noun

Knave n.

A boy; especially, a boy servant. (Obs.) "O murderous slumber, Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night."

Any male servant; a menial. (Obs.) "He's but Fortune's knave, A minister of her will."

A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person; a rogue; a villain. "A pair of crafty knaves." "In defiance of demonstration, knaves will continue to proselyte fools." Note: "How many serving lads must have been unfaithful and dishonest before knave which meant at first no more than boy acquired the meaning which it has now!"

A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or soldier; a jack; as, the knave of hearts.

Knave child, a male child. (Obs.)

Synonyms: Villain; cheat; rascal; rogue; scoundrel; miscreant.

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Etymology of 'Knave'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books

... this man on his road to his own worldly aggrandizement. Winding his way through a grove of powerful rogues, by flattery, professions of devoted attachment, and by actual and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,—till at last in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased confidence in his own political ...

— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... it flashed from a yawn-mouthed cave, Like a red-hot eye from a grave. No man stood there of whom to crave Rest for wayfarer plodding by: Though the tenant were churl or knave The Prince ...

— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... to them. It is evident, for instance, that an idiot could neither understand the hidden doctrines that might be communicated to him, nor could he so secure such portions as he might remember, in the "depositary of his heart," as to prevent the designing knave from worming them out of him; for, as the wise Solomon has said, "a fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of ...

— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... at last convinced that I represent the most perfect combination of knave and fool that ever threw heaven away and ...

— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... vigilance. Rawleigh now perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

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