recreant
UK/ˈɹɛkɹɪənt//ˈɹɛkɹiənt/
recreant adjective: having admitted defeat and surrendered; defeated.
Adjective
recreant (comparative more recreant, superlative most recreant)
- Having admitted defeat and surrendered; defeated.
- Soothly, he that despeireth hym is lyk
The coward champious recreant, that seith,
Creant withoute nede, allas! akkas! bedekes us
He recreant and nedelees despeired.
[Translation by Larry D. Benson from Riverside Chaucer: Truly, he that despairs himself is like the cowardly defeated champion, who...1387, Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Part 3: "The Parson's Tale" - For, from the day that he thus did it leave, / Amongst all Knights he blotted was with blame, / And counted but a recreant Knight with endles shame.1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.11
- Synonyms:
- beaten, overcome, subjugated, vanquished, foiled, bested, broken, confounded, conquered, defeated
- Soothly, he that despeireth hym is lyk
- Unfaithful to someone, or to one's duties or honour; disloyal, false.
- Who, for ſo many benefits receiv'd, / Turn'd recreant to God, ingrate and falſe, / And ſo of all true good himſelf deſpoil'd, […]1671, John Milton, “The Third Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 61
- And let the recreant traitors seek / My tourney court […].1793, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel
- Synonyms:
- guiled, proditorious, trothless, booky, dastardly, disleal, disloyal, double-crossing, double-dealing, double-faced
Noun
recreant (plural recreants)
- Somebody who is recreant, who yields in combat; a coward or traitor.
- [I]n the Choephoroe of Aeschylus Orestes pursues the same idea saying that unless he avenges his father, a stern duty which has devolved upon him, he will be punished in turn by the avengers of his father's wrongs. It may be remarked that in Maina to-day no recourse must be had to law for such...1928, Montague Summers, chapter 3, in The Vampire, His Kith and Kin
- If Scholz believed he could dodge a reckoning after his party was beaten into a humiliating third place by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, he, like most recreants, is likely mistaken.2024 June 12, Matthew Karnitschnig, “Time runs out for Olaf Scholz”, in Politico
- Synonyms:
- apostate, coward, deserter, poltroon, renegade, turncoat, backstabber, betrayer, cockatrice, double-crosser
recreant meaning in Bengali and Malayalam
recreant in Bengali
- ভীরু, বিশ্বাসঘাতক
recreant in Malayalam
- അഭയം പ്രാപിക്കുന്ന, കീഴടങ്ങുന്ന
Examples of recreant in a sentence
- [V]ictory is obtained if either champion proves recreant, that is, yields, and pronounces the horrible word of craven; a word of disgrace and obloquy rather than of any determinate meaning.1759, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 3, Chapter 22, concerning trials by battle:
- But, thank fortune, this preacher can be even more easily reached by the weapons of the reformer than could the recreant priest.1854, Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts:
- To do this were incredibly base, the subterfuge of a recreant and a craven.1928, Montague Summers, chapter 3, in The Vampire, His Kith and Kin:
Synonyms of recreant
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- licked
- overpowered
- pwned
- rekt
- routed
- stonkered
- thwarted
- undone
- worsted
- wrecked
- guiled
- proditorious
- trothless
- booky
- dastardly
- disloyal
- double-crossing
- double-dealing
- double-faced
- double-hearted
- doublehearted
- faithless
- false
- false-hearted
- guileful
- hollow-hearted
- infidelitous
- Judaslike
- Judasly
- nonfaithful
Forms of recreant
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more recreant |
| superlative | most recreant |
| Noun | |
| plural | recreants |
Origin of recreant
From Middle English recreaunt, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French recreant (“defeated”), from recroire (“to yield in a trial by combat, surrender allegiance”). Compare miscreant.
Words formed from recreant
Questions about recreant
- What does recreant mean?
- Recreant means having admitted defeat and surrendered; defeated.
- What is recreant in Bengali?
- Recreant in Bengali is ভীরু, বিশ্বাসঘাতক. See Recreant meaning in Bengali.
- How do you use recreant in a sentence?
- [V]ictory is obtained if either champion proves recreant, that is, yields, and pronounces the horrible word of craven; a word of disgrace and obloquy rather than of any determinate meaning.
- What part of speech is recreant?
- Recreant can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce recreant?
- Recreant is pronounced /ˈɹɛkɹɪənt/ (UK).
Words near recreant in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: recreant (page history and authors); recreant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); recreant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-recreant.wav.
Cite this entry: “recreant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/recreant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.