Etymology

knave

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Today it means: A boy; especially, a boy servant. Full definition →

Middle English knave ← Old English cnafa ← Proto-West Germanic *knabō
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*knabō
  2. Old English · inherited fromcnafa“child, boy, youth; servant”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromknave
  4. English todayknave

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.