varlets

Noun

varlet (plural varlets)

1. (obsolete) A servant or attendant.
   • The varlet, or follower of the merchant, who was still a youth, though his vigorous frame and embrowned cheek denoted equally severe exercise and rude exposure, started and reddened at this free inquiry, which was enforced by a hand slapped familiarly on his knee, and such a squeeze of the leg as...1840, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter I, in Mercedes of Castile: Or, The Voyage to Cathay. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 19
2. (historical) Specifically, a youth acting as a knight's attendant at the beginning of his training for knighthood.
   • [T]here was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], →OCLC, page 138
3. (archaic) A rogue or scoundrel.
   • [W]hen the worlde is fraughted with ſo manye varlettes, that it will be a long time ere a man ſhall diſcerne the faythful from the Hipocrites.1574, Augustine Marlorate [i.e., Augustin Marlorat], “[Revelation 2:2]”, in Arthur Golding, transl., A Catholike Exposition vpon the Reuelation of Sainct Iohn. […], London: […] H[enry] Binneman, for...
4. (obsolete) The jack.