Etymology

knavish

K5N1A1V4I1S1H4

Today it means: Having the characteristics of a knave; mischievous, roguish, waggish, rascally or impertinent. Full definition →

Middle English knavych
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromknavych
  2. English todayknavish

From Middle English knavych, knavyssh; equivalent to knave + -ish.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.