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From Middle English Category:English terms inherited from Middle English#KNAVE Category:English terms derived from Middle English#KNAVE knave, knafe, from Old English Category:English terms inherited from Old English#KNAVE Category:English terms derived from Old English#KNAVE cnafa (“child, boy, youth; servant”), from Proto-West Germanic Category:English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic#KNAVE Category:English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic#KNAVE *knabō. Cognate to Dutch knaap and German Knabe.

knave (plural knaves)Category:English lemmas#KNAVE Category:English nouns#KNAVE Category:English countable nouns#KNAVE Category:English entries with incorrect language header#KNAVE Category:Pages with entries#KNAVE Category:Pages with 2 entries#KNAVE

(archaic Category:English terms with archaic senses#KNAVE) A boy; especially, a boy servant.
(archaic Category:English terms with archaic senses#KNAVE) Any male servant; a menial.
- 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]:
  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.
  Category:English terms with quotations#KNAVE
(dated Category:English dated terms#KNAVE) A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person.
Synonyms: rogue, villain; see also Thesaurus:villain
- 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:
  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.
  Category:English terms with quotations#KNAVE
- 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:
  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.
  Category:English terms with quotations#KNAVE
- 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter II, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
  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.
  Category:English terms with quotations#KNAVE
- 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 204:
  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!"
  Category:English terms with quotations#KNAVE
(card games Category:en:Card games#KNAVE) A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or a soldier.
Synonyms: jack; J (symbol)