Skip to main content
PlainSpell

knave

/neɪv/noun

knave is spelled K-N-A-V-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,954th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, knave means “A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of knave is knaves.

How many letters and syllables are in knave?

Letters5: K-N-A-V-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 3 million words; the 52,954th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How common is knave?

Knave appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,954th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce knave?

  • /neɪv/

Knave has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-knave.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with knave

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

knave vs nave0 B

Sounds like: nave (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of knave

  • knaves plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does knave mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    archaicA boy; especially, a boy servant.

  2. 2

    archaicAny male servant; a menial.

  3. 3

    datedA tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person.

  4. 4

    A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or a soldier.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Knave in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpage (archaic: boy; especially, boy servant), voyou, fourbe, faquin (deceitful fellow), valet (playing card)
GermanKnabe, Knappe, Junge (archaic: boy; especially, boy servant), Gauner, Schurke (deceitful fellow), Knecht (archaic: any male servant)
Portuguesepajem (archaic: boy; especially, boy servant), valete (playing card)
Spanishpaje (archaic: boy; especially, boy servant), bellaco, villano (deceitful fellow), sota (playing card), mozo (archaic: any male servant)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does knave come from?

From Middle English knave, knafe, from Old English cnafa (“child, boy, youth; servant”), from Proto-West Germanic *knabō. Cognate to Dutch knaap and German Knabe.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after knave