knight

Meanings

Noun

• A young servant or follower; a trained military attendant in service of a lord.
• A minor nobleman with an honourable military rank who had served as a page and squire.
• An armored and mounted warrior of the Middle Ages.
• A person on whom a knighthood has been conferred by a monarch.
• A brave, chivalrous and honorable man devoted to a noble cause or love interest.
• 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.
• A playing card bearing the figure of a knight; the knave or jack.
• Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Ypthima (genus).
• A generic name for various mushrooms belonging to the order Agaricales, the gilled mushrooms; scientific name Tricholoma.

Verb

• To confer knighthood upon.
• To promote (a pawn) to a knight.

Related

Similar words

• horse
• dub

Origin

• From Middle English knight, knyght, kniht, from Old English cniht ("boy, servant"), from Proto-West Germanic *kneht.
• From Middle English knighten, kniȝten, from the noun. Cognate with Middle High German knehten.