Word.ws English Dictionary

knaue

knaue is the obsolete typography of knave.

Meaning of knave

Noun

knave (plural knaves)

  1. (archaic) A boy; especially, a boy servant.
  2. (archaic) Any male servant; a menial.
    • Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave that, doting on his own obsequious bondage, wears out his time, much like his master's ass, For naught but provender, and when he's old – cashier'd! Whip me such honest knaves.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  3. (dated) A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person.
    • I could plainly diſcover from whence one Family derives a long Chin; why a ſecond hath abounded with Knaves for two Generations, and Fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be Sharpers.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Further Account of Glubbdubdrib. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte...
  4. A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or a soldier.
    Synonyms:
    jack

Forms of knaue

pluralknaues

Questions about knaue

What is knaue the obsolete typography of?
Knaue is the obsolete typography of knave.

Words near knaue in the dictionary

  1. knaster
  2. Knaster-Tarski theorem
  3. knat
  4. Knaub
  5. Knaubs
  6. knaue
  7. Knauer
  8. Knauers
  9. knaues
  10. Knauff
  11. Knauffs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knaue (page history and authors); knave (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “knaue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knaue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.