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Knave   Listen
noun
Knave  n.  
1.
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."
2.
Any male servant; a menial. (Obs.) "He's but Fortune's knave, A minister of her will."
3.
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!"
4.
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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books



... business on the throne of England than your Uncle Juvinell himself. His ministers, who were of his own choosing, were vultures, of the same harsh, unsightly plumage, and, at his beck or nod, stood ready to do whatever knave's work he might have on hand,—even to the grinding of his people's bones to make his bread, should his royal appetite ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... see how splendid it is, and that it is one's only chance of getting on! To shut your eyes to the possibility of the great man having a touch of the commonplace, a touch of the ass, even a touch of the knave in him, doesn't ennoble your conception of human nature. If you can only glorify humanity by telling lies about it, and by ruling out all the flaws in it, you end by being a sentimentalist. "See thou do it not ... worship God!" that's ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... roused the nobler qualities of Bartolomeo. He was astounded at the impudence of the knave who dared to call Aurora ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... said Rob-in, "Under this green wood tree. It were great sham-e," said Rob-in, "A knight alone to ride, Without squy-er, yeoman or page, To walk-e by his side. I shall thee lend Little Johan my man, For he shall be thy knave; In a yeoman's stead he may thee stand If thou ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... Peter ran to seed in soul Into a walking paradox; For he was neither part nor whole, 545 Nor good, nor bad—nor knave nor fool; —Among the woods ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... His reason is merely example, and his action is not guided by his understanding, but he sees other men do thus, and he follows them. He is a negative, for we cannot call him a wise man, but not a fool; nor an honest man, but not a knave; nor a protestant, but not a papist. The chief burden of his brain is the carriage of his body and the setting of his face in a good frame; which he performs the better, because he is not disjointed with other meditations. His ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... jostled each other good-naturedly around a long table, where insolent waiters served tepid coffee, and sandwiches that had been cut by the hand of a knave. In the background a number of ladies nodded encouragement to their cavaliers in the intervals of scrutinizing each other's dresses. Many pencilled eyebrows were raised in derision of too little style displayed by some innocent rival, or brought down in disapproval of too much of the same vague quality ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... man is thought a knave, or fool, Or bigot, plotting crime, Who, for the advancement of his kind, Is wiser than his time. For him the hemlock shall distil; For him the axe be bared; For him the gibbet shall be built; For him the stake prepared. Him shall the scorn and wrath of men Pursue with ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... are a knave, whose ears I would slit, if it had not already been done too often. You insult me by saying that I have an ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... honor are divorced. The place that the small and shallow, the knave or the trickster, is deemed competent and fit to fill, ceases to be worthy the ambition of the great and capable; or if not, these shrink from a contest, the weapons to be used wherein are unfit for a gentleman to handle. Then the habits of unprincipled advocates ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... many an amulet and charm That would do neither good nor harm. He understood the speech of birds As well as they themselves do words; Could tell what subtlest parrots mean That speak and think contrary, clean; What member 'tis of whom they talk, Why they cry, rope and—walk, knave, walk. He could foretell whatever was By consequence to come to pass; As death of great men, alterations, Diseases, battles, inundations: All this without th' eclipse o' th' sun, Or dreadful comet, he hath done By ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... knave," burst angrily from the lips of Sir Christopher Seaton, as he half rose from his seat and clenched his mailed hand at the speaker, and then hastily checking himself, added, in a lower tone, "Answer him, Nigel; thou hast ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... If I wear a velvet coat and am dressed by my valet, I am a rascal and the valet is my slave. There is no place in this world for a man like him. I am actually afraid of him. Yes, indeed, he is likely, out of a sense of duty, to insult a man at any moment and to call him a knave. ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... to win supporters were not altogether without success, for the liveryman, Jerry Paddock, became his foreman, and Jake Maunders, evidently seeing in the noble Frenchman one of those gifts from the patron saint of crooked men which come to a knave only once in a lifetime, attached himself to him and became his closest adviser. Maunders, as one who had known him well remarked long afterwards, "was too crooked to sleep in a roundhouse." Whether he set about deliberately to secure a hold on the Marquis, which the Marquis could ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... knave! Dost thou presume the monarch of the French Thus in his own dominions to deny? Thou art protected by thine ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... great magician, Tycho Brahe, But not so great that he could read the heart Or rule the hand of princes. When his friend King Frederick died, the young Prince Christian reigned; And, round him, fool and knave made common cause Against the magic that could pour their gold Into a gulf of stars. This Tycho Brahe Had grown too proud. He held them in contempt, So they believed; for, when he spoke, their thoughts Crept at his feet like spaniels. Junkerdom Felt it was foolish, for he towered ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... "Cease your titles, Knave," exclaimed Abi, "and listen, for I need counsel, and if you cannot give it I will find one who can. Just now I lay on my bed asleep, and a dreadful vision came to me. I dreamed that I woke up, and feeling a weight on the bed beside me turned to learn ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... verdict outweighs all the fools'— Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that. I pine among my million imbeciles (You think) aware some dozen men of sense Eye me and know me, whether I believe In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, And am a fool, or disbelieve in her And am a knave—approve in neither case, Withhold their voices though I look their way: 380 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end (The thing they gave at Florence—what's its name?) While the mad houseful's plaudits near outbang His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones, He looks through all ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... find in him qualities of a most original type. His spirits are inexhaustible, he laughs heartily and often without malice at the follies of the mass of men; Cleon and Euripides were anathema to him, but the rest he treats as Fluellen did Pistol: "You beggarly knave, God bless you". His lyrics must be classed with the best in Greek poetry. Like Rabelais this rollicking jolly spirit disguises his wisdom under the mask of folly, turning aside with some whimsical twist just when he is beginning to be too serious. He will repay ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... stupid you are!" replied Clef-des-Coeurs, "haven't you guessed, you knave of tricks, that this is the home of the beauty our jovial Merle has been whistling round? He'll marry her to a certainty—that's as clear as a well-rubbed bayonet. A woman like that will do honor ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... Dumas, convinced. "I was too hasty; and now I think we have nothing further to do, since we have arranged to make short work with our fournee of to-morrow. I see in the list a knave I have long marked out, though his crime once procured me a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... for example, in Brunetto Latini, in the Image du Monde, in the Mirabilia of Jordanus,[6] and in the verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the maiden's charms but by her perfumery. So he is inveigled and blindfolded by a stout young knave, disguised as a maiden and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... attitude, just as I stand now—then turned she—thus—to me, and stretching her arm out—so—and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloft—thus—as if he had been but a child." (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... him for a knave expectant of some chance to maraud. She was not fearful, however. It was she. It ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... old he-goat, the one-eyed, what shall be My saying of a knave, his fashion and degree? I rede thee vaunt thee not of praise from us, for lo! Even as a docktailed cur thou art esteemed of me. By Allah, without fail, to-morrow thou shalt see Me with ox-leather dress and drub the nape ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... manuscript circulation and for a few years after its publication The Prince was treated with favour or at worst with indifference, and the first mutterings were merely personal to the author. He was a scurvy knave and turncoat with neither bowels nor conscience, almost negligible. But still men read him, and a change in conditions brought a change in front. He had in The Prince, above all in the Discorsi, accused the Church of having ruined Italy and debauched the world. In ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... that scarcely seems a grave, Deck'd with the daisy, and each lowly flower, Time leaves no stone, recording of the knave, Whether of humble, or of lordly power: Fame says he was a bard—Fame did not save His name beyond the living of his hour— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... it for an honour and praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow; for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists. It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil-vessel. For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the perfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these fair billevezees and trifling jollities, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... was amazed to hear him call the princess by such name, and the proudest gentry in the land arrant robbers. "Why, pray my lord," said I, "do you consider these great noblemen worse thieves than highwaymen?" "Thou art a simpleton—think on that knave who roves the wide world over, sword in hand, and with his ravagers at his back, slaying and burning, and depriving the true possessors of their states, and afterwards expecting to be worshipped as conqueror; is he not worse than the petty ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... can't see that the tables are turned at last," said Paul slowly, "you're a duller knave than I take ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, Beheld his best-of-life the easy prey Of quacks and scamps, and all the vile array That line the way, From thieving statesman down to petty knave; Yea, saw himself, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... exaggeration, for it is only slight. The essential truth of his statement remains: he had found a book of a different class from that of the ordinary manuscript—indeed diversis a nostris characteribus. Instead of thinking him arrant knave or fool enough to bring down "antiquity" to the thirteenth century, we might charitably push back his definition of "nostri characteres" to include anything in minuscules; script "not our own" would be the majuscule hands in vogue before the Middle Ages. That is a position ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand

... bringing before us the blushing roses of a lovely face. The Vikings, mere pirates from the viks or creeks of Scandinavia, have, by the same process, been raised to the dignity of kings; just as coat cards—the king, and queen, and knave in their gorgeous gowns—were exalted into ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... before the people he got the mission of Cato confirmed by a law. When Cato was leaving Rome, Clodius allowed him neither ship nor soldier nor attendant except two clerks, one of whom was a thief and a thorough knave, and the other was a client of Clodius. And as if he had given him but small occupations with the affairs of Cyprus and Ptolemaeus, Clodius commissioned him also to restore the Byzantine fugitives, his wish being that Cato should be as long as possible ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... will not be safe to dreame of a knave shortly. Are you so good at a gun? if you use this too often your birding piece will scarce carry a ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... as well. Double-Spy, there is an ugly fact;—perhaps not quite convenient to abolish it by hemp and gibbet; perhaps it could be turned to use, as most facts can? "Very good, my expert Herr von Schonfeld [that was the knave's name]; and now of all things, whenever the Prince does get across,—instant word to us of that! Nothing so important to us. If he should get BETWEEN us and Breslau, for example, what would the consequence be!" To this purport Friedrich instructs his Double-Spy; sends him ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... second-miserablest of men! The Irish Sans-potato, had he not senses then, nay a soul? In his frozen darkness, it was bitter for him to die famishing; bitter to see his children famish. It was bitter for him to be a beggar, a liar and a knave. Nay, if that dreary Greenland-wind of benighted Want, perennial from sire to son, had frozen him into a kind of torpor and numb callosity, so that he saw not, felt not, was this, for a creature with a soul in it, some ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the window an inch or two. No; put back your whistle. I do not propose to fling you out, at least not just yet; nor will I try to escape. To tell you the truth, you suggest the need of a little fresh air. And now, Monsieur, you assure me you hold the knave in your hand. Well then, play him. Before I tear your foolish paper up, let me have a look at your confederate." I stepped to the door and called down the stairs, "Madame Jupille, be so good as to ask my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the tribe, because it holds out to them a prospect of honour, wealth, and power such as hardly any other career could offer. The acuter minds perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker brother and to play on his superstition for their own advantage. Not that the sorcerer is always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely convinced that he really possesses those wonderful powers which the credulity of his fellows ascribes to him. But the more sagacious he is, the more likely he is to see through the fallacies ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... his desire to get rid of Van Buren. In his letters to Henry Post, the Kinderhook statesman is termed "an arch scoundrel," "the prince of villains," and "a confirmed knave;"[196] yet Clinton put off the moment of his removal from week to week, very much as Tompkins hesitated to remove Clinton from the mayoralty; that is, not so much to save the feelings of Van Buren as to avert the hostility of James Tallmadge and John C. Spencer, both of whom sought ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. Of all who thus themselves degrade, A stern example must be made, To Coventry go, you tipsy bee!" So off to Coventry town went he. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. There, classed with all who misbehave, Both plausible rogue and noisome knave, In dismal dumps he lived to own The folly of trying to swarm alone! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. All came of trying to ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... Set one Knave to catch another, is a proverbial Saying of great Antiquity and Repute in this Kingdom. Thus the vigilant Vintner, notwithstanding all his little Arts of base Brewings, abridging his Bottles, and connecting his Guests together, does not always reap the Fruits of his own Care ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... carry a jealous grudge to the point of turning informer. So he set his inventions to the task of evolving a blackmailing snare which might be set and sprung, and afterwards dismantled and hidden away without the intervention of the female knave of the species in any of its stages. Trust him—smooth as lubricating oil, a veritable human graphite—to turn the trick. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... thou, friend Ketch," said he. "Truly a pretty hand with a cutlass, thou son of a sea-cook. I've a mind to let a little of thy blood with this knife, thou scurvy knave. But I will give thee one more chance. If thou fail again, by St. George thou shalt die the death. Once ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen

... the needful labours of the plough, The cart-whip graced me, as the chain does now. Nature and fate in doubt what course to take, Whether I should a lord or plough-boy make; Kindly at last resolv'd they would promote me, And first a knave, and then a knight they vote me. What fate appointed, nature did prepare, And furnish'd me with an exceeding care, To fit me for what they design'd to have me; And every gift but honesty ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... "Seize yonder knave," shouted Sakon, and search was made but without avail. Afterwards, however, Aziel remembered that once, when they were weather-bound on their journey from the coast, Metem had amused them by making his voice sound from various ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... man is thought a knave or fool, Or bigot plotting crime, Who for the advancement of his kind Is wiser than ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... he said. "This puts them in our power. You were quite right—we don't want to produce this yet. But I think I can use it to scare our friend Niles. If I'm right, and he's only a fool, and not a knave, I'll be able to do the trick. Here he is now! Watch me give him the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart

... These figures are not conventionalized. The face cards are three: el rey (the king), el caballo (representing a mounted cavalryman, and corresponding in value to our queen), and la sota (a standing infantryman, sometimes called also el infante, and corresponding in value to our knave). These figures are unreversible. The First Gambler is dealer and banker, as is shown by the fact that he covers the bets (line 466). He is losing in spite of the fact that the banker had an advantage. The caballo is clearly ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... called "Major O'Flaherty." A soldier, says he, is "no livery for a knave," and Ireland is "not the country of dishonor." The major pays court to old Lady Rusport, but when he detects her dishonest purposes in bribing her lawyer to make away with Sir Oliver's will, and cheating Charles Dudley of his fortune, he not only abandons ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... spoliation, and popular enlightenment, are always in an inverse ratio to one another, for it is in the nature of abuses to go as far as possible. Not that pure and devoted priests cannot be found in the midst of the most ignorant population, but how can the knave be prevented from donning the cassock and nursing the ambitious hope of wearing the mitre? Despoilers obey the Malthusian law; they multiply with the means of existence, and the means of existence of knaves is the credulity of their dupes. Turn whichever way ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... much favoured by the audience that envy appeared against it in the form of criticism; and Griffin, a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet called "The Key to the What D'ye Call It," "which," says Gay, "calls me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave." ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... Hindoos and Calmue Tartars. He can hardly find his way into the next street, though he is acquainted with the exact dimensions of Constantinople and Pekin. He does not know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal characters in history. He cannot tell whether an object is black or white, round or square, and yet he is a professed master of the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... unbounded, and, so apparently, unaccountable, an influence over Sir Robert Cecil as Sir Willmott Burrell: he knew, as we have elsewhere stated, many of his secrets, and shrewdly guessed at others of more weighty import; while, with the ready sagacity of an accomplished knave, he contrived to appear well acquainted with matters of which he was altogether ignorant, but the existence of which he had abundant reasons for suspecting. The enfeebled health and growing infirmities of the baronet rendered him an easy prey to his wily acquaintance, who, driven to his last ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... knave," shouted Sir John. "Am I to be set at naught in my own house by a chit of a girl and a gallant who would mend ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... Wherefore, Abraham, servant free, Look that thou be true to me, And fore-word here I make with thee Thy seed to multiply. So much more further shalt thou be, Kings of thy seed men shall see, And one child of great degree All mankind shall forby.[68] I will that from henceforth alway Each knave's child on the eighth day Be circumcised, as I say, And thou thyself full soon; And who circumcised not is Forsaken shall be by me, I wis; For disobedient that man is, Therefore look that this ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... coast. I dare not say, from the rich cardinal And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk, Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain, They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour, Have hired me to undermine the duchess And buzz these conjurations in her brain. They say ' A crafty knave does need no broker;' Yet am I Suffolk and the cardinal's broker. Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near To call them both a pair of crafty knaves. Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last Hume's knavery will be the duchess' ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... lang. Weel, he was admitted; and when the lady was delivered, he craved to know the very moment of the hour of the birth, and he went out and consulted the stars. And when he came back, he tell'd the Laird, that the Evil One wad have power over the knave-bairn, that was that night born, and he charged him that the babe should be bred up in the ways of piety, and that he should aye hae a godly minister at his elbow, to pray wi' the bairn and for him. And the aged man vanished away, and no ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... the will of the Gentiles, which is the same with lusts of men. Therefore as long as life continues we should see to it that we do that which is well-pleasing to God; for we have our enemy in our flesh, the one that is the real knave—not gross matter merely, but more particularly blindness of mind, which Paul calls carnal wisdom,—that is, the policy of the flesh. If we have subdued this depravity, that other is carefully to be constrained, ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... soul, and I would rather, in these my ripe years, eat with a highwayman who takes his life in his hands than with the civilian who robs his king and the king's poor, and has no better trick than false accounts, nor better friend than the pettifogging knave. Doltaire had no burning love for France, and little faith in anything; for he was of those Versailles water-flies who recked not if the world blackened to cinders when their lights went out. As will be seen by-and-bye, he had come here to seek me, and to serve ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long knave with the spear there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give us a stave or two more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. But no, no! their singing was over. Grim death, in the shape of a Chevalier, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... centuries ago, by Sir John Harrington. "Poor John," from being so long "Jack among his familiars," has been most scurvily treated, being employed to form sundry very derogatory compounds, such as, Jackass, Jackpudding, Jack-a-dandy, Jackanapes, Jack-a-lent, Jack o' oaks (knave of clubs), Jack-o' th' Lantern, &c. &c. Might not "Jack" have been derived from John, somewhat after the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various

... sitting in his cave, Helped by the diving Ulysses, old and wise, Spilling the wine in rivers down his beard, Shaggy and grim,—his shoulder overleered By swart Silenus, sly and cunning knave, Who steals a puffy skin ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... further attractions to offer. I am KOOT HOOMIBOOG, and I have kept the greatest attraction for the last. If you will only join us, you may find a few newspapers who will discuss you. You may see the question whether you are a fool or a knave debated in the correspondence columns. Think of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various

... researches, would moralise? What would a physician be who would stop to moralise? Or a great statesman, who would toe the chalk-line of your middle-class ten commandments? As for an artist, when he moralises, he is a fool and a knave. And please tell me, what sort of a business would the church do if all of us were moral? There would be ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Captain Brentwood with Mrs. Buckley. The most remarkable event I have to chronicle during the long period which followed, is, that one day a bushfire came right up to the garden rails, and was beaten out with difficulty; and that same evening I held nine trumps, Ace, Queen, Knave, Nine of hearts, and the rest small. I cannot for the life of me remember what year it was in, somewhere between forty-two and forty-five, I believe, because within a year or two of that time we heard that a large comet had appeared in England, and that Sir ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... lived long enough in it, Mr. Sampson, to know something of it. 'Tis sadly selfish, my dear sir, sadly selfish; and everybody is struggling to pass his neighbour! No, I can't give you any more cards. You haven't the king? I play queen, knave, and a ten,—a sadly selfish world, indeed. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... He had wit, indeed, together with a most insinuating address and a gay, courtly behaviour; but a villainous heart appeared constantly through all, to such a degree as betrayed him to be a fool in adversity and a knave in prosperity. In short, he was the first minister that could be called a complete trickster, for which reason his administration, though successful and absolute, never sat well upon him, for contempt—the most dangerous disease of any State—crept insensibly into the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... trouble himself about that. He will have Little Christchurch and all that belongs to it as soon as I am gone. I had made up my mind only to allow Eva an income out of it while she was thinking of that fellow Grundle. That man is a knave." ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... minute was the inquiry into character can be seen in the case of a certain Robert Smith (of Magdalen) in 1582, who was refused his B.A., because he had brought scandalous charges against the fellows of his College, had called an M.A. 'to his face "arrant knave", had been at a disputation in the Divinity School' in the open assembly of Doctors and Masters 'with his hat on his head', and had 'taken the wall of M.A.s without ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... us in 1847, if it had stood only at the head and foot of Kate's little account. But unhappily for Kate's debut on this vast American stage, the case was otherwise. Mr. Urquiza had the misfortune (equally common in the old world and the new) of being a knave; and also a showy specious knave. Kate, who had prospered under sea allowances of biscuit and hardship, was now expanding in proportions. With very little vanity or consciousness on that head, she now displayed a really fine person; and, when drest anew in the way ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... must be inborn; it must proceed from a genius, and particular way of thinking, which is not to be taught, and therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from nature. How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. This is the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... revenge, vengeance, retribution. Responsible, answerable, accountable, amenable, liable. Reveal, disclose, divulge, manifest, show, betray. Reverence, veneration, awe, adoration, worship. Ridicule, deride, mock, taunt, flout, twit, tease. Ripe, mature, mellow. Rise, arise, mount, ascend. Rogue, knave, rascal, miscreant, scamp, sharper, villain. Round, circular, rotund, spherical, globular, orbicular. Rub, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... Way of an Eagle The Knave of Diamonds The Rocks of Valpre The Swindler The Keeper of the Door Bars of Iron Rosa Mundi The Hundredth Chance The Safety Curtain Greatheart The Lamp in the Desert The Tidal Wave The Top of ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... machine, don't git one of that feller in the wagon behind you—I know him well; he is one of the most worthless shacks in the country, as you can plainly see by the looks of his countenance. If I ever see a face in which knave and villain is wrote down, it is on hisen. Any one with half an eye can see that he would cheat his grandmother out of her snuff handkerchief, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... spring from the hero's grave, The craven knows no rest,— Thrice cursed the traitor and the knave, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire, unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to the brave man I had dreamed of, I would have come cheerily through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster"—and here she thrust him from her—"I spit upon you. Now ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... creeping, mean assertions of that party when they say they do not include me in their censures, nor do I work for their praise. According to their and according to your rejoicing...I am either a knave or a fool—a knave if I joined with Brother Marshman; but if, as those gentlemen say, and as you seem to agree with them, I was only led as he pleased, and was a mere cat's-paw, then of course I am a fool. In either way your thoughts are not very high as it respects me. I do ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... saucy knave!" said the other, quickly; but instantly checking himself, he added, "and how fares it with your lady, in the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... to be honest at all events; and if, in your own judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave." ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... more or less of an ass. The opposition he and his friends have been making to the Technical Bill is quite unintelligible to me. Y. may be, and I rather think is, a knave, but he is no fool; and if I mistake not he is minded to kick the ultra-radical stool down now that he has mounted by it. Make friends of that Mammon of unrighteousness and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... say this—Do not any longer degrade the honourable House of Commons, by forcing on its attention matters and details which ought to fall beneath the province of a lower tribunal: do not leave it in the power of any fool or knave—and there are many such actively employed at this time—who can persuade half a dozen of the same class with himself into gross delusion of the public, to occupy the time, and monopolize the nobler ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... forsake an opinion they had conceived in anger. They are all the more exasperated by blows and constraint. And he that made the story of the woman who, in defiance of all correction, threats, and bastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy knave, and who being plunged over head and ears in water, yet lifted her hands above her head and made a sign of cracking lice, feigned a tale of which, in truth, we every day see a manifest image in the obstinacy of women. And obstinacy is the sister ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... subtle ferment strong. And all things that belong thereto, Are wondrous and exceeding rare! The devil taught her, it is true; But yet the draught the devil can't prepare. (Perceiving the beasts.) Look yonder, what a dainty pair! Here is the maid! the knave is there! (To the beasts) It seems your dame is not ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... muttering to himself, "Alas that I should have fallen to such traffic with a knave, but it is for your sake and for your soul's sake, O Aziel my son. I pray that Fate be not too strong ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... friends. Everywhere he ranged, he and his comrade, Father Persons, sometimes in company, sometimes apart; and wherever they went the Faith blazed up anew from its dying embers, in the lives of rustic knave and squire. ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... man almost always neglects a present interest, in order not to destroy a future one; whereas the knave does the contrary, and loses a great future interest for ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... was not good enough for him, and it was necessary to transfer him to heaven that he might be the right man in the right place. Such persons may succeed in making themselves agreeable to the man with whom they desire to ingratiate themselves, provided that man be a fool or a knave; but they assuredly render themselves disagreeable, not to say revolting, to all human beings whose good opinion is worth the possessing. And though any one who is not a fool will generally make himself agreeable to people of ordinary temper and nervous system, if he wishes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... they once espouse their Party, let them be touch'd with that Philosophers stone, and they are turn'd into Gold immediately. Nay, that will do more for them, than was ever pretended to by Chymistry; for it will raise up the shape of a worthy Patriot, from the ashes of a Knave. 'Tis a pretty juggle to tell the King they assist him with Money, when indeed they design only to give it to themselves; that is, to their own Instruments, which is no more, than to shift it from one hand into another. It will be a favour at the long run, if they condescend to acquaint the ...
— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden

... work, The Saints' Everlasting Rest; and he wrote with great fervor A Call to the Unconverted. He was a very voluminous writer; the brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they are ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... brazier that he bore, Its sweet, white, scented wood quick lapping o'er. With darkened face Eblis above her hung. "This hath, than my poor pipe, a keener tongue," Smileless and stern, he said. "Oh, dame, List how the wild, crisp, crackling ruby flame Eats through the tender boughs. A trusty knave It is, that serves me well, and loud doth rave As tiger caged. When I do set it free, With angry fangs leaps on its prey. But see, It now sleeps harmlessly, till Eblis calls His faithful servant back. Lilith, when falls The red fire at thy feet, dost fear?" "Nay, nay," ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... my hair, Or dash my brains out in despair!— Me every scurvy knave may twit, With stinging jest and taunting sneer! Like skulking debtor I must sit, And sweat each casual word to hear! And though I smash'd them one and all,— Yet them I could not liars call. Who comes this way? who's sneaking here? If I mistake not, two draw near. If he be one, have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... a stuffed man of straw,' whispered Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre; 'and the captain so like the knave of clubs, putting forth one ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... upon thee, canting knave!" And strong hands shook the door. "Believe me, Macy," quoth the priest, "Thou 'lt rue thy ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha so base as be a slave? Let ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... a true, is also a moral and instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); his faithful ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray

... their Vice-Consul has been cited to appear in their defence, and, in short, they are put above the law of their own country and enabled to amass considerable wealth. The fact that the foreigner who protects them is often a knave and a thief is a draw-back, but the popularity of protection is immense, for the protector may possibly not combine cunning with his greed, while the native Basha or his khalifa quite invariably does. British subjects may not give protection,—happily ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... rang out in the Hall, and Fusbius fled to the door; and they tore his gown as he went and cursed him for a knave. But the President raised his voice aloud ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... bright fatherland! O German love, so true! Thou sacred land, thou beauteous land, We swear to thee anew! Outlawed, each knave and coward shall The crow and raven feed; But we will to the battle all— Revenge shall be ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... row of fingers as clean as the guillotine. Tibbald, of course, had his joke about that part of the machinery which is called the 'damsel.' He was a righteous man enough as millers go, but your miller was always a bit of a knave; nor could he forbear from boasting to me how he had been half an hour too soon for Hilary ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... flirt; a regular knave of Hearts; and yet totally unlike those professional lady-killers who carry their smooth chins so very high above their would-be rivals in fashionable drawing-rooms. There was no insinuation of his purpose or design ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... Tiveria! Lord, Lord that time should play the treacherous knave thus! Why, he was the only friend I had in Spain, sir, I knew your Mother too, a handsome Gentlewoman, She was married very young: I married 'em: I do remember now the Maskes and Sports then, The Fire-works, and the fine ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... repulse, the gentleman (bearing high on my lord's favour) told him that he might, perchance, procure him a discharge. Leicester coming to the contestation, said publicly, which was none of his wonted speeches, that he was a knave, and should not long continue in his office; and so turning about to go to the Queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well-beloved, stepped before him, and fell at Her Majesty's feet, relates the story, and humbly craves Her Grace's pleasure, and in such a manner as ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice into the lowest depths of despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed, and led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor yet love, in the Robber Moor. You will likewise see a juggling, fiendish knave unmasked and blown to atoms in his own mines; a fond, weak, and over-indulgent father; the sorrows of too enthusiastic love, and the tortures of ungoverned passion. Here, too, you will witness, not without ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... he of the keys, "the garb of laziness and filthy debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to Master Robert Collan, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of England, and paragon of all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In 146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson, Hiempsal, Juba ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... my blood, I own. I can love almost all men I've ever known; But much as thy presence with pleasure thrills me, That man with a secret horror fills me. And then for a knave I've suspected him long! God pardon me, if ...
— Faust • Goethe

... must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave enough to cheat every attorney ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... I tell you that our public News Papers have announced General Washington to be a Fool influenced & lead by that Knave Dr. Franklin, who is a public Defaulter for Millions of Dollars, that Mr. Morris has defrauded the Public out of as many Millions as you please & that they are to cover their frauds by this ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... pride, and besought him "not to appear to his servants so unconcerned in things of that nature." Either the French King would believe that he took the money without his master's knowledge, and so look on him as a treacherous knave; or "that he received it with his Majesty's approbation, which must needs lessen his esteem of him, that he should permit his servants of the nearest trust to grow rich at the charge of another prince, who might the next day become his enemy." [Footnote: Life, i. 523.] The ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... "wes callit the King; the second best, the Queen; the third, the Knave. Them as wouldna' ficht we callit 'fougie.' Eh, what a ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... reason hast thou (tell me) for desiring to read? For if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor, spiritless knave. But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy reading secures thee not serenity, what profits it?—"Nay, but it doth secure it," quoth he, "and that is why I repine at being ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... Tutor knave Screw him like a Guinea slave! Who would fish a fine to save! Let him turn and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... the town and its Convent of Ursulines. Here came once upon a time a sprightly lady who added a thousand lively interests. This was Louise de Cabris, sister of the great Mirabeau, "who, when a mere girl, had been married to the Marquis de Cabris. Part knave, part fool, the vices of de Cabris sometimes ended in attacks of insanity. His marriage with one who united the violence of the Mirabeaus to the license of the Vassans was unfortunate; ... and after Louise began to reign in the big dark house of the Cours of Grasse, life never lacked for incidents." ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... the dust from your jacket, designing knave! A fellow to be preaching to my men! There's Hollister put the devil in them by his exhorting; the rascals were getting too conscientious to strike a blow that would raze the skin. But hold! Whither do you travel, Master Blackey, in ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... connected with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the life of its great author, John Law. Historians are divided in opinion as to whether they should designate him a knave or a madman. Both epithets were unsparingly applied to him in his lifetime, and while the unhappy consequences of his projects were still deeply felt. Posterity, however, has found reason to doubt the justice of the accusation, and to confess that John Law was neither knave nor madman, but ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... on the left, and the others are Queen, and King, and Knave. I call him Knave because he's always scheming, trying to get out of his share of the work, and I make him walk on ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... communicate with a sun-baked beggar of the desert like him. Whereupon he raised a lance longer than a mast, and would have run me through, but for the expertness with which I seized and wrested it from him, and then broke it over his head. 'Twas the same scowling knave whose camels choked the street the first day we entered the city, and who sent his curse after us. Hassan is his name. His eye left a mark on me that's not out yet. A ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... deeds on which the American pulpit and American public men plume themselves. We always allow our opponents to paint their own pictures. Our humble duty is to stand by and assure the spectators that what they would take for a knave or a hypocrite is really, in American estimation, a Doctor of Divinity ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... a rascal as this Reynolds—who seems to impress every one he meets with his blackguardism—and communicated with him freely on paper; you will have observed that I acknowledged these notes without hesitation. What a clumsy knave you must think me. I resent the imputation. Perhaps you have noticed that in one of these notes I state that on my honour I cannot accommodate him with the three hundred dollars he demands, because it is quite out of my power ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King's manner and earned the King's anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King's rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up and down ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... selfish, malignant, subtle, evil-scheming knave in "Othello," his "ancient" or ensign, who poisoned his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... head away, resting her hand on the table. My indignation waxed hot against the scoundrel. How dare he write casual letters to Judith about Carmine Badouin with his treachery on his conscience? I know the terms of flippant grace in which the knave couched this precious epistle. And I could see Carlotta reading over his shoulder and clapping her hands and cooing: "Oh, that is ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... when your heart was broken, when your Dream Knight had actually sat by your side and ridden with you and you had treated him as though he were a kitchen knave. The only crumb of comfort Christina had was that which her pride provided. At least Wallace would never dream that she had been silly enough to set him up on a pedestal, dream about him at night, and watch for him by day. But it was a ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... is an unsparing pomp of noble sentiments, but withal most strangely associated with atrocious baseness. Not unfrequently does an injured fair one dispatch a despised lover to stab the faithless one from behind. In almost every piece there is a crafty knave who plays the traitor, for whom, however, there is ready prepared some royal magnanimity, to make all right at the last. The facility with which base treachery is thus taken into favour, as if it were nothing more than an amiable weakness, would have been extremely revolting, if there ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... who stood round her, wont to hear Brunello often boast of the deceit, 'Gan turn towards that wretch, and made appear By open signs they knew him for the Cheat. Marphisa who the subtle knave whilere Suspected as the author of that feat, Now questions this, now that, who all accord In saying 'twas Brunello ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... through you that I am forced into this exile, through your airs penches, and your sighing and dreaming, and your mysterous Smith.... To think that to-night, this very night, is the ball of the season, and we are going to bed! Oh, and to-morrow and to-morrow, and to-morrow, with nothing but a knave and a fool to keep us company—for I don't think much of your female cousin, Madeleine, and, as for your male cousin, I perfectly detest him—and all the tabbies of the country-side for diversion, with perhaps ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... do not make thyself fool and knave too. Dost not thou know that we are out of fear of all thy army, and out of danger of all that they can do? What makes thee act so simply as ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... and contumely. And yet of this much am I well assured, That had Achilles living been the judge To whom his arm and valours prize should go, Mine, and mine only, would those arms have been. But now the Atridae to a cunning knave, My exploits misprized, have surrendered them. And had not strong delusion warped my sense, And clouded o'er my vision, never more Would they have an unrighteous sentence given. But that stern-eyed, resistless child of Zeus, Just as I put forth ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... Lord knows how high, And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why; 160 While high-born ladies in their magic cell, Forbidding Knights to read who cannot spell, Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave, And fight with honest men to shield a knave. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... and stood watching him—and waiting. I knew that he could n't tell the truth without filling in the gaps in his own case. I never am deterred by any compunction over the methods I am sometimes obliged to use to make an individual, whom I know deserves no consideration, speak. With a knave like Burke I would as lief resort to thumb-screws, the boot, the rack, or even to choking the words from him, as to trust to persuasion alone. To tell the truth, my preference lies with the means first enumerated: they are much more prompt and direct. The worst ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... fellow emigrants: but he found himself generally distrusted and despised. He had been a great man in the knot of ignorant and hotheaded outlaws who had urged the feeble Monmouth to destruction: but there was no place for a lowminded agitator, half maniac and half knave, among the grave statesmen and generals who partook the cares of the resolute and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... person and apparel of a Page: thou shalt bee my mistresse, and I wil play the man so properly, that (trust me) in what company so ever I come I will not be discovered: I wil buy me a suite, and have my Rapier very handsomely at my side, and if any knave offer wrong, your Page wil shew him the poynt ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... being good? We have seen that this was palpably the position of Paley. [Footnote: Chapter xxiv, Sec 96.] If God will not reconcile, ultimately, benevolence and self- interest, proclaimed Reid, man "is reduced to this miserable dilemma, whether it is best to be a fool or a knave." [Footnote: Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay III, Part III, chapter viii. It would be absurd to believe that either Paley or Reid lived down to the level of his doctrine. Both were very decent ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... should be paid the reward that it had called out. This was refused; but it was agreed, that as the parrot had offered a reward, the man should again refer to its determination for the sum he was to receive. 'Give the knave a groat,' the bird screamed aloud, the instant the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... Post-Prandials as they originally came out—some of them, strange to say, not wholly complimentary. As a rule, I am too busy a man to answer letters: and I take this opportunity of apologising to correspondents who write to tell me I am a knave or a fool, for not having acknowledged direct their courteous communications. But this friendly criticism seems to call for a reply, because it involves a question of principle which I have often noted in all discussions of Utopias ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... men might aske, why she was not slain? Eke at the feast who might her body save? And I answere that demand again: Who saved Daniel in th' horrible cave, When every wight save him, master or knave, The lion ate—before he could depart? No wight but God, whom ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... to seek and entertain a parley With a known knave, before a multitude! You were an actor with your handkerchief; Which he most sweetly kist in the receipt, And might, no doubt, return it with a letter, And point the place where you might meet: your sister's, Your mother's, or your aunt's might ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... length.' 'Then,' quoth Lawrence, 'neither thou nor yet any of us all shall do well as long as we forsake our head of the Church, the Pope.' 'By the mass!' quoth Croxton, 'I would thy Pope Roger were in thy belly, or thou in his, for thou art a false perjured knave to thy prince.' Whereunto the said Lawrence answered, saying, 'By the mass, thou liest! I was never sworn to forsake the Pope to be our head, and never will be.' 'Then,' quoth Croxton, 'thou shalt be sworn spite of thine heart one day, or ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... him out, Friar, and let him pack his goods and go, Whither he will. I trust the knave to thee And thy good quarter-staff, for some five ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... I thought you, Bunny, and by Jove it's the knave! Well—I suppose I'm fairly drawn; I give you best, as they say out there. As a matter of fact I've been thinking of the thing myself; last night's racket reminds me of it in one or two respects. I tell you what, though, this is an occasion in any case, and I'm going ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... plan! Would we could also get "One Vote, one Man!" Then we might also reach, "One Vote, one value." But, England, you have never found, nor shall you, Alas! (despite the democracy's promoter) That real manhood always marks the voter; Or fearing neither knave's device, nor "rough" rage, We'd trust the State ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... was a marvel of ridiculous atrocity; it frequently set forth the crime and all the imaginary circumstances the plaintiffs were eager to prove; it was, in short, the publication of a ready-made case, which gave the first knave that came a chance of earning some money by making a lying deposition in favour of the highest bidder. The inevitable effect of the monitory, when it was drawn up with a bias, was to arouse public hatred against ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE—a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man who has ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... thy strangely vain and small pursuits and pleasures—thy pipe, thy wine, thy women, thy "busy" city life, thine immense sagacity which once in twenty times outwits a fool or knave—thy vaunted living is ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley

... and disaster came upon us for his impiety, but it appears that he died like a brave soldier, and he is a whip-knave who strikes at such. As for this man, he needs succour and care. Stand aside, then, that I may take him where his wants may be ministered to. There will soon be plenty of fugitives to fill ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... easy matter to dispose of so cunning a knave, Clameran felt no hesitation in undertaking to accomplish his purpose. He was incited by one of those passions ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... previous deliberation, by means of the political or religious veto.(28) The revolution hadswept away thesebarriers; andin consequence that absurd system now began fully to develop its results, and to put it in the power of any petulant knave to overthrow the state in due form of law. What was under such circumstances more natural, more necessary, more truly conservative, than now to recognize formally and expressly the legislation of the senate to which effect had been hitherto given by a circuitous ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... full security and in possession of the otium cum dignitate, he negotiated with the government, whom he had alarmed by publishing the secrets which he had stolen. He succeeded. He sold himself to great advantage. Bought and sold he was; and of course it is understood that, if you buy a knave, and expressly in consideration of his knaveries, you secretly undertake not to hang him. 'Honor bright!' Lord Barrington might certainly have indicted Junius at the Old Bailey, and had a reason for wishing to do ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... Hearts She made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts He stole those tarts, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various



Words linked to "Knave" :   rogue, court card, rapscallion, face card, villain, varlet, scoundrel, scallywag



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