Etymology

knight

K5N1I1G2H4T1

Today it means: A young servant or follower; a trained military attendant in service of a lord. Full definition →

Middle English knight ← Old English cniht ← Proto-West Germanic *kneht
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

knight · noun1

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*kneht
  2. Old English · inherited fromcniht“boy; servant, knight”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromknight
  4. English todayknight

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

knight · verb2

  1. Middle English · inherited fromknighten
  2. English todayknight

From Middle English knighten, kniȝten, from the noun. Cognate with Middle High German knehten.

Knight · proper noun3

  1. Old English · inherited fromcniht“youth; servant”
  2. Middle English · inherited fromknyghte
  3. English todayKnight

From Middle English knyghte, from Old English cniht (“youth; servant”).

Words from the same roots

Old Englishcniht all →

Knightsbridge

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.