knight-errant

American  

[nahyt-er-uhnt] / ˈnaɪtˈɛr ənt /

noun

plural

knights-errant

1. a wandering knight; a knight who traveled widely in search of adventures, to exhibit military skill, to engage in chivalric deeds, etc.

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knight errant British  

noun

1. (esp in medieval romance) a knight who wanders in search of deeds of courage, chivalry, etc

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Etymology

Origin of knight-errant

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50

Example Sentences

The 16th-century novelist Miguel de Cervantes framed his fictional story of the knight-errant Don Quixote as the translation of a recovered Arabic manuscript.

From New York Times • Aug. 30, 2022

Nonetheless, he is regarded by some in the astronomy community as a knight-errant, tilting at windmills.

From Scientific American • Jul. 29, 2021

One man came as a patriotic duck; another as a bald eagle; another as a cross between a knight-errant and Captain America; another as Abraham Lincoln.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 7, 2021

In Cervantes’s classic novel, a student tells the knight-errant Don Quixote, “The greater the fame of the writer, the more closely his books are scrutinized.”

From Washington Post • Sep. 3, 2019

The faithful knight-errant swung himself from branch to branch with an adroitness which proved that he was experienced in that mode of descent.

From The Danes Sketched by Themselves. Vol. I (of 3) A Series of Popular Stories by the Best Danish Authors by Various