knight

See also: Knight

English
a knight (warrior)
a knight (chess)

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

Etymology 1

From Middle English knight, knyght, kniht, from Old English cniht, cneht, cneoht (“boy, youth, servant, attendant, retainer, disciple, warrior, boyhood, junior member of a guild”), from Proto-Germanic *knehtaz (compare Dutch knecht (“attendant, servant”), German Knecht (“lad, servant”), Danish knægt (“boy, lad, knave”)), originally ‘billet (wood), block of wood’ (compare Dutch laarzeknecht (“boot-jack”), dialectal German Knüchtel (“bat, club”)), from Proto-Indo-European *gnegʰ-, from *gen- ‘to ball up, pinch, compress’.

Alternative forms

Noun

knight (plural knights)

  1. A warrior, especially of the Middle Ages.
    King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
  2. A young servant or follower; a military attendant.
  3. Nowadays, a person on whom a knighthood has been conferred by a monarch.
  4. (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.
  5. (card games, dated) A playing card bearing the figure of a knight; the knave or jack.
  6. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Ypthima.
Synonyms
  • (chess piece): horse (informal)
Derived terms
Terms derived from the noun knight
  • Knight of St John
  • knight of the carpet
  • knight of the chamber
  • Knight of the Bath
  • knight of the blade
  • knight of the brush
  • 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 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 spigot
  • Knight of the Spur
Translations
See also
Chess pieces in English · chess pieces, chessmen (see also: chess) (layout · text)
king queen castle, rook 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)

  1. (transitive) To confer knighthood upon.
    The king knighted the young squire.
  2. (chess, transitive) To promote (a pawn) to a knight.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Terms derived from the verb to knight
Translations

See also

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English cniht, from Proto-Germanic *knehtaz.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /knixt/, [kniçt]
  • Rhymes: -ixt

Noun

knight (plural knights)

  1. knight

Descendants
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