# knight

> English word · Noun · IPA /naɪt/ · frequency rank #4,461

## Definitions
1. A young servant or follower; a trained military attendant in service of a lord.
2. A minor nobleman with an honourable military rank who had served as a page and squire.
3. An armored and mounted warrior of the Middle Ages.
4. A person obliged to provide knight service in exchange for maintenance of an estate held in knight's fee.
5. A person on whom a knighthood has been conferred by a monarch.
6. A brave, chivalrous and honorable man devoted to a noble cause or love interest.
7. A chess piece, often in the shape of a horse's head, that is moved two squares in one direction and one at right angles to that direction in a single move, leaping over any intervening pieces.
8. A playing card bearing the figure of a knight; the knave or jack.
9. Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Ypthima.
10. Any mushroom belonging to genus Tricholoma.
11. A species of nymphalid butterfly, Lebadea martha, found in tropical and subtropical Asia.

## Etymology
From Middle English knight, knyght, kniht, from Old English cniht (“boy; servant, knight”), from Proto-West Germanic *kneht.

## Easily confused with
- **knit** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/knight-vs-knit)
- **knights** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/knight-vs-knights)
- **knighted** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/knight-vs-knighted)
- **night** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/knight-vs-night)
- **nite** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/knight-vs-nite)

## Common misspellings (10)
`kinght`, `kknight`, `kngiht`, `knigght`, `knighht`, `knightt`, `knigth`, `knihgt`, `knnight`, `nkight`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/knight