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Knave   /neɪv/   Listen
Knave

noun
1.
A deceitful and unreliable scoundrel.  Synonyms: rapscallion, rascal, rogue, scalawag, scallywag, varlet.
2.
One of four face cards in a deck bearing a picture of a young prince.  Synonym: jack.






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"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretended obligations. The applying to him in any laudable undertaking is not like stirring 'a dish of skimmed milk.' There is stuff in him, and it is of the right practicable sort. He is not all his life at hawk-and-buzzard whether he shall be a Whig or a Tory, a friend or a foe, a knave or a fool; but thinks that life is short, and that there is no time to play fantastic tricks in it, to tamper with principles, or trifle with individual feelings. If he gives you a character, he does not add a damning clause to it: he does ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... that even ye dare to raise your voices against me? By the good Heaven, I will begin my work here by slaying the first man who dares to raise word against my bidding." Then he turned from them. "Here, Hans," said he, "take the boy; and remember, knave, what ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... Walter; come down, my men," she cried; "we must e'en hold a council of war, and lay our plans; while old Andrew will keep watch for us, and tell us when the black-faced knave ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... wickeder," said Ben when Black Paul had hurried away; "the de'il himsel' couldna hae taught ye a craftier trick than that. Weel ye kenned that that black fellow would fain serve under a free-handed fool than a stingy knave. Ay, sir, your ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

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

... is not, according to the customs of this country of the Black Hills; but, look at it. That fellow, who I am satisfied is a black-hearted knave, has not only taken the life of poor Harris, but, very probably, has given his sister her death-blow. The question is: should he go unpunished in the face of all ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... when a slight sneer I perceived flickering over the steward's face, put me on the qui vive to request an inspection of the log-book, which, unfortunately for my captor, did not record the disembarkation of the cash. This demonstrated Brulot's falsehood, and authorized a demand for his trunk. The knave winced as the steward descended to bring it; and he leaped with rage as I split it with a hatchet, and counted two hundred and fifty Mexican doubloons on the deck. His cargo, however, proved to be a ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... in quest, with Chance before you, as you did the soldier, "whose dog's that?" you would have stammered a little—and almost, in your affection, have gone down upon your knees to have begged him as a gift; and it is fearful to think what a sum any knave as cunning as yourself had been, would have got out of you. Now, my dear Eusebius, I entreat you, when you shall read or hear read—"Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing," that you think of Chance, and not of his doing, but yours. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... applause. His position as a Queen's favourite in any case must have brought aversion upon him. Tarleton, as he half acted, half improvised, is said to have shuffled a pack of cards, and pointed at him, standing behind the Queen's chair, an insolent innuendo: 'See, the knave commands the Queen.' The comedian, if the story be true, could reckon upon the support of a vast body of popular malevolence. Still, as a favourite, Ralegh only shared the lot of his class. The same privileged ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... spring where the citizens of the city went for water, they encountered Melanthios, a goatherd, driving goats into town. Two servants followed, helping him. As soon as he saw Eumaios and his guest, he said: "Look! There is one knave leading another. Verily, the gods bring like and like together. Thou miserable swineherd, whither dost thou take that worthless beggar, this vagabond who rubs his shoulders on every door-post, asking for crusts, eating gluttonously, and telling ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... ceased to exist, and of course human rights, also; the world as viewed from the standpoint of law contained only corporations, only interests. Thus, a man like Victor Dorn was in his view the modern form of the devil—was a combination of knave and lunatic who had no right to live except in the restraint of an ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... 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 ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... to 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 hyena's ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... a complication Eloquent had not foreseen. Among his father's friends cards were regarded as the Devil's Books, and he did not know the ace of spades from the knave of hearts. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... was he! He has deluded us most handsomely. He was in Louis' pay, and Louis has a use for him! I'll slit the knave's throat ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... recovery, had become reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with that notorious sceptic Monsieur de Voltaire. He remembered the terrible night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking in his dressing-room, with the knave of diamonds half-way down his throat, and confessed, just before he died, that he had cheated Charles James Fox out of 50,000 pounds at Crockford's by means of that very card, and swore that the ghost had made him ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but very little credit with your Worship.' ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was an unfortunate decision, because it fatally injured the Serbian prospects of preventing their territory being overrun before the French and we could intervene effectively, while it did not secure Greek adhesion. We virtually staked on King Constantine, and we found too late that our King was a Knave. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... read in the brow and eye the history of a sordid yet reckless life. His conversation was repellent to me beyond expression. He uttered the meanest sentiments, and he chuckled over them as the maxims of a superior sagacity; he avowed himself a knave upon system, and upon the lowest scale. To overreach, to deceive, to elude, to shuffle, to fawn, and to lie, were the arts that he confessed to with so naked and cold a grossness, that one perceived that in the long ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of May he sent down his last orders. The Duke was not to seek a battle. If he fell in with Drake he was to take no notice of him, but thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman, that he was rid of a knave. He was to go straight to the North Foreland, there anchor and communicate with Parma. The experienced admirals who had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz—Martinez de Recalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de Oquendo—strongly urged the securing ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... proof that my mother was a legal wife—I have only scorn and contempt for the man who wronged her," Mona replied, intense aversion vibrating in her tones. "I regard him, as my uncle did, as a knave—a brute." ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

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

... seems," said D'Artagnan to himself, "that if I am not a poor, mean, miserable fellow, I should let M. Fouquet know the opinion the king has about him. Yet, if I betray my master's secret, I shall be a false-hearted, treacherous knave, a traitor too, a crime provided for and punishable by military laws—so much so, indeed, that twenty times, in former days when wars were rife, I have seen many a miserable fellow strung up to a tree for doing, in a small degree, what my scruples counsel me to do to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... nothing more for him to do. But Tommy took good care not to get through with that potatoe patch, yet he was always as busy as a bee when he saw "the master" coming that way, who would praise him for his industry and wink at his tricks. Tommy was quite a Merry Andrew, and more knave than fool, after all; and when he became a decent looking man, from the present of a bran new suit—cap-a-pie—and a comb into the bargain, which his thoughtful benefactor procured for him, he was decidedly ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... of the knave at this juncture," said the abbot; "yet I wish to confront him, and charge him ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... handling y^e former matters aboute y^e letters, upon provocation, in some heate of replie to some of Lyfords defenders, M^r. Winslow let fall these words, That he had delte knavishly; upon which on of his freinds tooke hold, & caled for witneses, that he cald a minister of y^e gospell knave, and would prosecute law upon it, which made a great tumulte, upon which (to be shorte) this matter broke out, and the witnes were prodused, whose persons were so grave, and evidence so plaine, and y^e facte so foule, yet delivered in such modest ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... said Castell; "a knave like that is not worth ten. Indeed, he was the assailant, and nothing should be ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... Jenkins,' 'excellent, worthy Jenkins.' But I know you, my man, and for all your fine motto, so insolently displayed on your envelopes, on your seal, your cuff-buttons, your hat-buckles and the panels of your carriages, I always see the knave that you are, showing everywhere around the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... watchful, painful, serving their flock daily with prayers and tears," some among them, also, men of high European repute. They had often, however, the mortification of seeing their congregations crowding to hear the ravings of any knave or enthusiast who broached a new doctrine. Most of these mischievous fanatics were given the advantage of that interest and sympathy which a cruel and unnecessary persecution invariably excites. All this time ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... to venture his person any longer in the open campaign, to retreat and entrench himself, to stop up all avenues, and draw up all bridges against so numerous an enemy. The truth of it is, that a man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will make him a fool: and if the injury went no farther than the being laughed at, a wise man would content himself with the revenge of retaliation: but the case is much worse, for these civil cannibals too, as well as the wild ones, not only dance about such a taken ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... soga this afternoon?' demanded the functionary. 'I sent for no soga,' said the prisoner, 'I sent for my alforjas to serve as a pillow, and it was sent in them by chance.' 'Thou art a false malicious knave,' retorted the Alcalde, 'you intend to hang yourself, and by so doing ruin us all, as your death would be laid to our door. Give me the soga.' No greater insult can be offered to a Spaniard, than to tax him with an intention of committing suicide. Poor Vitoriano flew into a violent rage, and ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... induce young Skegson, who lived in our road, to go with me. Skegson is a barrister now, and could not tell you the difference between a knave of clubs and a club of knaves. A few years hence he will, if he works hard, be innocent enough for a judge. But at the period of which I speak he was a red-haired boy of worldly tastes, notwithstanding which I loved ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... even up in this world, if a body has patience to wait a spell," answered Samson. "And though I've no love for him, and wouldn't trust him across this plaza, without watchin', I can't help pitying poor 'top-lofty,' and thinking he was more fool than knave. The idee! Them plans and performances of his savor more of the 'middle ages,' that I've heard about, than of these days. But it just takes my breath away to think of what Sobrante will be, some time, if that 'find' in the canyon turns out what we imagine. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... enemy, the French Emperor, by whom both had thus been caught like mice in a cage, and compelled to abdicate. At this news a feeling of indignation ran through the vice-kingdom, while all Europe laughed at the strange combination of knave and fool exhibited in the characters of the two Spanish kings. The people of New Spain saw in them only the guardians of the Church in the power of the infidels, and at once forgot the unnatural crimes of their two kings. They thought only of their piety, and with joy the news was ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... Startin was not loved at school; We thought him rather knave than fool. Migrating thence to Oxford, he Failed to secure a pass degree. Years sped—some twenty—ere again Jim Startin swam into my ken. I met him strolling down the Strand Well-dressed, well-nourished, sleek and bland, A high-class journalistic swell— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various

... Chesterton difficult. Really Chesterton is read by a select number of people who would claim to be intellectual; very up-to-date clergymen rave about his catholicity, high-brow ladies of smart clubs delight in his knave whimsicalities, but the girl in the suburban train to Wimbledon passes by on the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... untrue so far as the speaker was concerned. It took a clever man to make Tam Wylie dance to his piping. But Thomas, the knave, knew that he could always take a rise out the Provost by cracking up the Gourlays, and that to do it now was the best way of fobbing him off ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... world of fashion. There 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, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... has his master's nose, To smell a knave through silken hose; If friends or honest men go by, Welcome, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... then?" said Helmar, a little mollified at the man's open words. "Look here, Mark, I don't want to say hard things, but if you're not a knave you are a fool, and the sooner you pull yourself together and live a decent life, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... in his journal, "may properly be called a knave, because after he surrendered his ship, begged for and obtained quarter, he basely ran away, contrary to the laws of naval war and the practice of ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... He dons the gown t' escape the task of prayer. "Heresiarch recant, or leave the school:" A recantation proved the knave no fool.[2] Behold him later in another sphere, Where thieves abound and murderers appear; Tricked out in low and meretricious art, He plays with skill the pettifogger's part; Chicanery's brought to succor darkest crime, Too basely foul t' expose ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin

... artifices by which the women seek to fan the flames of love and turn the devotion of their admirers into the more tender caress and more daring osculation that speaks a husband's right. So that the knave took little notice of it, but laughing at the complaints of the charming creature, asked her to fix ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... "Characters upon essaies morall and divine, 1615," dedicated to Bacon, and concerning wisdom, learning, knowledge, patience, love, peace, war and other, even then, rather trite subjects. "The good and badde," 1616, contains characters of a knave, an usurer, a virgin, a parasite, a goodman, an "atheist or most badde man: hee makes robberie his purchase, lecherie his solace, mirth his exercise, and drunkennesse his glory," &c. These books of "Characters" were extremely popular. Cf. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... are the principles and 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 or ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... little box, though one was enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round and pointed out all the beautiful carvin's and things on the choir, the transits, and the nave, but when Jonas stopped before the carved figger of the devil chawin' up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit of a knave, the old feller didn't know what he meant. An' then we wandered alone through them ruined cloisters and subterraneal halls, an' old tombstones of the past, till I felt I don't know how. There was a girl in New Jersey who used to put on airs because her family had lived in one place for a hundred ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... the doors and windows, too! Who the demon cares about them? How dared you, you knave, permit your young mistress to ride, unattended, in the face of such a storm, too! Why didn't you go with ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... authorities until 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 the British ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... entertain the fixed hope that they have at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never see him again;—nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old knave!— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... herself, crying bitterly, on a chair, entreated me to forgive her, assuring me that she was innocent, and that she was not present when the knave had given the names. The landlady, coming in at that moment, vouched for the truth of her assertion. My anger began to abate, and as I passed near the window I saw the carriage I had ordered waiting for me with a pair of good horses. I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... day we should have to strive for the mastery. And we did—sooner than I expected; for, as the colonel filled his glass, and, calling upon the rest to follow his example, drank a welcome to me back among them, this knave, sitting opposite at the time, fixed his eyes upon me as he lifted his glass to his lips, and did not drink. As our looks met, I knew that he mocked me, and I flung my wine ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the Duchess's, in the midst of the partisans and protectors of that minister, that the finances of France passed alternately from the hands of an honest man without talent into those of a skilful knave. M. de Calonne was thus far from acting in concert with the Queen all the time that he continued in office; and, while dull verses were circulated about Paris describing the Queen and her favourite dipping at pleasure into the coffers of the comptroller-general, the Queen was avoiding ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... Armstrong had the folly to come into the King's presence with such a train, his men so completely armed and so many in number, as to compete with royal magnificence, not very great in Scotland in those days. "What wants yon knave that a king should have?" said the young James, who had certainly had enough of such powerful subjects: and he would not listen to either excuse or explanation from the Borderer, whose defiance as he was led to his execution, and the wail ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... "Cease, knave!" cried Tario. "I heard your words: 'However, he is dead now. Of that I am glad. Now shall Jav come into his own. Now shall Jav be Jeddak ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... into immoderate laughter. "Cadet," said he, "you are, when drunk, the greatest ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Let the lady sleep in peace, while we drink ourselves blind in her honor. Bring in brandy, valets, and we will not look for day until midnight booms on the old clock of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Mr. Everett remarks, that "Tertullian was a very shrewd writer, [yes indeed, and of his fraudulent shrewdness Middleton gives some notable instances in his true inquiry] and Irenaeus less fool than knave," p. 471. of Mr. Everett's work. I would observe to Mr. Everett, that this Irenaeus is the first writer who mentions the four Gospels, and that the Fathers of the Church who came after him in affirming the genuineness of the four Gospels appeal ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... Just as he was leaving the front door his favourite hound mistook him for a tramp—or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or whatever they used to call them at that time—and bit him in the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... if you don't want to go? Man's all right, isn't he? Once knew a man by the name of Burmistone, myself. One of the few decent fellows I've met. If I were sure this was the same man, I'd go myself. When I find a fellow who's neither knave nor fool, I stick to him. Believe I'll send to find out. ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... men had kept on fairly good terms—not so rigid good terms, of course, as to forbid their expressing to third parties the frankest contempt for each other. The Judge had here the advantage, for Strong despised him indignantly, as a knave, while he despised Strong—or said he did—pityingly, as a fool. He must, however, have at bottom honored the young fellow with some serious antipathy; for it was after all no laughing matter that a boy ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... of losing it. Some regulation in matters of love are indispensable for the happiness of both parties. I think I am even justified in advising you on certain occasions to be a trifle unprincipled. On all other occasions, though, it is better to be a dupe than a knave; but in affairs of gallantry, it is only the fools who are the dupes, and knaves always have the laugh on their ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... Heartfree which had given them suspicions. And what is most astonishing of all is, that many of those who had before censured him for an extravagant heedless fool, now no less confidently abused him for a cunning, tricking, avaricious knave. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... insist that as much was to be inferred from the handwriting as from the face. I showed him a letter from a man of great fame, and he saw genius in every stroke. I then produced a letter from an arrant blockhead and great knave, but so like the other as not to be distinguished, at least by my unphysiognomical discernment. He acknowledged that there was resemblance to an ignorant eye; but, said he, triumphantly, this (latter) ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... 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

... something of his own feeling of 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, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... in my little Ship" (the Scandal) "with no company but my crew" (Tom Newson and his nephew Jack) ". . . and my other—Captain of the Lugger now a-building: a Fellow I never tire of studying—If he should turn out knave, I shall have done with all Faith in my own Judgment: and if he should go to the Bottom of the Sea in the Lugger—I shan't cry for ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... and bade Will get on the box and take the reins; then whispering to Harry, she told him where to find me, and begged he would prepare me for her coming. 'I shall soon master this knave's scruples,' she said; 'he is but bringing them to market, and I am ready to buy them;' and as I suppose, she paid a heavy price for the use of that coach for an hour, saying her man should drive it to her house and then return it empty ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... the English People are rendered provoking by his extraordinary language concerning his opponents. 'Numskull,' 'beast,' 'fool,' 'puppy,' 'knave,' 'ass,' 'mongrel-cur,' are but a few of the epithets employed. This is doubtless mere matter of pleading, a rule of the forum where controversies between scholars are conducted; but for that very reason it makes the pamphlets as provoking to an ordinary reader as an old bill ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... was silent, and looked very grave— 'Twas a habit he had—the scheming old knave! No Spider, intent on his labor of love, Had more of the serpent, or less of ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... "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 quarters of the hut ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... were a knave," said he, "but I did not suppose you were also a coward. A man who is not a coward will not try to put the blame upon a woman, especially upon an innocent one. You, sir, will leave town this evening. Any business further than ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... about in dingy rooms, which look on to bare walls, and are approached through some Hook Court; or to keep appointments at a low coffee-house, to which trystings the money-lender will not trouble himself to come unless it pleases him; to be civil, almost suppliant, to a cunning knave whom the borrower loathes; to be refused thrice, and then cheated with his eyes open on the fourth attempt; to submit himself to vulgarity of the foulest kind, and to have to seem to like it; to be badgered, reviled, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... oftentimes to look from her windows to see me, more instigated by a secret love for my person than the pleasure she derived from my mad pranks, as afterwards appeared. One time, when some of the natives played the knave with me in view of the queen, whose secret favour towards me I began to perceive, I threw off my shirt, and went to a place near the windows, where the queen might see me all naked, which I perceived gave her great pleasure, as she ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... he said, more quietly, "that you may be right and I wrong about the things. That's another question altogether. I may be a fool: I only resent being called a knave. Really, you know!" ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... brat—possibly an injudicious one; but, since he is my prize, you know, by law, come—what will you give for him? Ah! happy thought, we will play for him! There, deal away, compadre. Sota and cavallo! I take the knave again, and you ten doubloons against ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... a man for that office. I knew of no one who would, as I thought, suit you; and in such a business it seemed to me better that you should wait, and choose for yourself, for in the matter of servants everyone has his fancies. Some like a silent knave, while others prefer a merry one. Some like a tall proper fellow, who can fight if needs be; others a staid man, who will do his duty and hold his tongue, who can cook a good dinner and groom a horse well. It is certain you will never ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... so it ends with two accomplished ones. A great part, and not the least readable, is occupied by a certain English Countess of Lindsay (for Dumas the younger, like Crebillon the younger, commits these scandala magnatum with actual titles). The hero is rather a fool, and not much less of a knave than he should be. His somewhat better wife is an innocent bigamist, thinking him dead; and one of the end-suicides is that of her second husband, who, finding himself de trop, benevolently makes way. As for the parrot, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... its own merits, their singular habit of allowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to depreciate his work, that an acknowledged critic like Macaulay could waste time in carefully considering whether Boswell was more fool or more knave, and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by accident. Probably Boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer he was, though he was not disposed to belittle his own performances. But his unbridled interest in the smallest details, his ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... report, Was never ill received at court, Although, ironically grave, He shamed the fool, and lashed the knave; To steal a hint was never known, But what he writ was all ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts, ...
— Denslow's Mother Goose • Anonymous

... from the captain that the New England seaman—he who had been cast away in the boat—should lead him about, and, above all, that he should sit beside him when he played cards and count the number of the pips, for unaided he could not tell the king from the knave. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fool and a knave!" Jack retorted, in a sudden blaze. "I won't have any more words with you. Sue for the reward, if you think you can get it. I'm just going to ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... whole of Riseholme of their discovery, and went to bed as soon as they had rooked their brother of eleven shillings at cut-throat bridge. They continued to say, "I'll play the Guru," whenever they had to play a knave, but Georgie found it quite easy to laugh at that, so long as the humour of it did not spread. He even himself said, "I'll Guru you, then," when he took a trick with the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... sordid 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... middle of the thirties, when the first Nicholas had been about ten years on the throne. Its first founders were three Polish nobles. It was never distinguished by the number of its members, but everyone of them could honestly call himself an accomplished knave, never stopping at anything that stood in the way of a "job." The present head of the band was Lieutenant Kovroff, who was a thorough-paced rascal, in the full sense of the word. Daring, brave, self-confident, he also ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... little, though, I opened my lips, and moistened them two or three times before I spoke. "Yes," said I, "I think I understand. We have both been hangers-on. But that seems, somehow, a long while ago. Yes, it was a knave who scaled that wall the first time,—one who needed and had earned a kicking from here to Aldebaran. But I think that I loved you from the very moment I saw you. Will you ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... vilest dens of Europe, was thoroughly acquainted with sharpers and scoundrels of every type, from those who ride in their carriages down to the bare-footed vagabond. He knew the thief who grovels at his victim's feet, humbly confessing his crime, the desperate knave who swallows the notes he has stolen, the abject wretch who bares his back to receive the blows he deserves, and the rascal who boldly confronts his accusers and protests his innocence with the indignation of an honest man. But never, in any of these ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... don't altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is—why, she's smiling on him as if he—and now on the Admiral! Now she's illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts—vulgar ungrammatcal shovel-maker—greasy knave of spades. I don't like this sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me—she hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... bearded Angevin was singing. His song was one of old Sire Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers. The knave was ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... a man of honor: "Other things being equal, an honest man has this advantage over a knave, that he understands more of human nature: for he knows that one honest man exists, and concludes that there must be more; and he also knows, if he is not a mere simpleton, that there are some who are knavish. But the knave can seldom be brought to believe in the existence ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... "Madame Querouaille, knave, Duchess of Portsmouth," irritably exclaimed a handsome gallant, himself stumbling somewhat over the French name, though making a bold play for it, as he passed toward his box, pushing the fellow aside. He added ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct of ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... 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 ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... "I would be knave or fool to need further incentive," said Hoffman, with much bitterness. "At the rate I am going on, debt, humiliation, and disgrace are before me. I may live up to my income without actually wronging others—but not beyond it. As things are now going, I am two hundred dollars worse off ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind. For even to the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think that, under the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies might be couched—those ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... I have for sale Casks of brown October ale, Brewed to make humanity hilarious; Here's a suit of homespun brave Fit for honest man or knave; Here's a stock in fact ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... when it reached Chia Yn ears, sounded like that of some one with whom he was intimate; and, on careful scrutiny, he found, in fact, that it was his next-door neighbour, Ni Erh. This Ni Erh was a dissolute knave, whose only idea was to give out money at heavy rates of interest and to have his meals in the gambling dens. His sole delight was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to Court to report the proceedings to the King: '"In nomine Domini incipit omne malum! This is pretendit bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk ..."—"They sall call me a false knave," replied the Bishop, "and never to be believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they wer never in Scotland."—"That may weill ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... not been so, I with mine own hand Would have outpour'd it down thy gullet, knave. See, here's a ring ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... suffer such odious treatment from the mean-spirited archbishop. Indeed, it was only for his father's sake that he submitted to the continued contumely and petty slights to which the archbishop delighted in subjecting him. At last the open rupture came. The archbishop called him a knave and dissolute fellow, and told him to be off; and when Mozart waited upon Count Arco, the principal official, to obtain the regular dismissal that was necessary, the fellow poured abuse upon him, and actually kicked him out of the room. Poor Mozart ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Dalton?" cried Mr. Seaton, his voice sounding as though he were choking. "Who, but the scoundrel who has engineered this whole desperate plot against me! The dastard who struck down Allan Clodis! The knave who has striven ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... yourself—Ha, ha, ha!—because your friends know it already, and to your enemies you will never do any harm. Fenwick, you are just sufficient of a fool to get yourself into a scrape, and sufficient of a knave to drag your friends in too, in the hopes of getting out yourself. Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend, knights and gentlemen of good repute, with full purses and with empty heads, you are paving a golden road to the gallows. Charnock, you are a butcher; but depend upon ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... had proved a bloody knave; my visionary lands and riches all had vanished; instead of silk attire and sword, I wore a rifle-shirt and skinning-knife; and out of the dawn-born glory of the hills had stepped no silken damsel of romance to pause and worship me—only a slender, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... of security. How often has the knave paraded under the banner of innocence! The greatest thieves wear ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... prisoner with both legs in fetters, handcuffed, and with the iron fork not yet removed from beneath his chin. The cell was dark, only a scanty gleam of light passing into it from a loop-hole near the top of the wall. "How goes it, sorry knave?" said the corregidor, as he entered. "I would I had all the gipsies in Spain leashed here together to finish them all at once, as Nero would have beheaded all Rome at a single blow. Know, thou thief, who art so sensitive on the point of honour, that I am the ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... shall be the Horatio of the tragedy. Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now— ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... what you say; you surely would not wish to cheat people," said I to Cumberland; "if it were really true that one must be either a knave or a fool, I'd rather be a fool by far—I'm sure you could never be happy if you cheated any one," continued I. "What does the Bible say about doing to others as you would have ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... garrison service, but was without any experience of warfare. He maligned the characteristic virtues of his colleagues, Paulinus' power of influence, Celsus' energy, Gallus' ripe judgement, and being a knave and no fool, he easily got the better of men who were both ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... from him the Valkyrie!" "Let the Valkyrie determine as she will!" "Nay, she solely carries out your wishes.... Forbid her the victory of Siegmund!" "I cannot deal him defeat!" protests Wotan, in anguish, "he found my sword!" "Withdraw the charm from the sword. Let it snap in the knave's hand. Let the adversary behold him without defence!... Here comes your warlike maid.... This day must her shield protect the sacred honour of your wife. My honour demands the fall of the Waelsung. Have I Wotan's oath?" The ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... Dessauer with part of his 20,000,—aided by Boy Dietrich (KNABE, "Knave Dietrich," as one might fondly call him) and the Moravian Meal-wagons,—accomplished his Troppau-Jablunka Problem perfectly well; cleaning the Mountains, and keeping them clean, of that Pandour rabble, as he was the man to do. Nor would ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... suddenly turned, on his servant and collared him, and shook him with rage. "D'ye stand there, knave, and see your master robbed? Run! fly! A hundred crowns to him that finds it me again. No, no! 'tis in vain. Oh, fool! fool! to leave that in the same room with him. But none ever found the secret spring before. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... he grumbled for greeting, "it was on a fool's errand you sent me, after all. That knave, your messenger, found me in London at last when I had outworn my welcome at Whitehall. But, 'swounds, man," he cried, remarking the pallor, of his ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... neighbours, but he is deeply read in the tribes and castes of the 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 laws of optics and the rules of perspective. He knows as much of what ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... seeing that she herself is arch-robber?" I 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; ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... to effect all their objects. The disease has already passed out of New York into Pennsylvania; it will spread, like any other epidemic, throughout the country; and there will soon be a severe struggle among us, between the knave and the honest man. Let the class of the latter look to it. It is to be hoped it is still sufficiently ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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 a shudder, the interior economy of vice; and from the stage be taught ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... "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

... Indians—for the scalp-dance now engrossed their whole attention. Withdrawing some distance from the noisy ceremony, we proceeded to discuss the possibility of rescuing Lilian Holt from the grasp of that knave into whose power the innocent girl had so ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... a noisy, blatant, meddlesome fellow, the keeper of a livery stable on Kearny street, and a fierce denouncer of the Committee. There was nothing else to his discredit, so far as I could learn at the time. Reub. Maloney was a compound character—a good deal of a knave, something of the man in his fidelity to his friends, reckless of everything except his own safety in any transaction calculated to damage the cause to which he was opposed; indifferent to what might happen to an adversary, He was a most valiant ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... more, 'what is there in that to make a howl about? Is there no law in England—is there no way of making a fool and a knave smart for it, if they see fit to assail the reputation of two honest men like you and me, James? 'His voice began to take something of its old ring. 'I wonder at you—tearin' up like a madman at this time o' night, and in this weather, with a yam ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray

... 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 he ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... Sheriff of Nottingham swore that he himself would bring this knave Robin Hood to justice, and for two reasons: first, because he wanted the two hundred pounds, and next, because the forester that Robin Hood had killed was ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... That is Will; and Nash detains him for a moment just to listen to his last words on the Marprelate controversy. Marprelate now appears "with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking like the snuff of a candle; quantum mutatus ab illo! how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice but for sharpness. The hogshead was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but the dregs." Will says it is very good; and Nash smiles to himself as he puts the papers in his pockets and thinks vaguely that he might do something for Will. ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... put entire faith in the verity of spiritual communications, while acknowledging the difficulty of identifying spirits as being what they pretend to be. He is a Swedenborgian, and so far prepared to put faith in many of these phenomena. As for Home, Powers gives a decided opinion that he is a knave, but thinks him so organized, nevertheless, as to be a particularly good medium for spiritual communications. Spirits, I suppose, like earthly people, are obliged to use such instruments as will answer their purposes; ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... kennels were stricken motionless as though they were dead. The flies ceased to buzz at the windows and the pigeons to coo upon the roof. In the great kitchen the scullions fell asleep as they were washing up the dishes, and a cook in the very act of boxing the ears of a kitchen-knave. ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans



Words linked to "Knave" :   scoundrel, court card, picture card, face card, villain



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