Percival

[pur-suh-vuhl]

noun

1. Arthurian Legend.,  Also Percivale a knight of King Arthur's court who sought the Holy Grail: comparable to Parzival or Parsifal in Teutonic legend.

2. a male given name.

Percival

/ ˈpɜːsɪvəl /

noun

1. German equivalent: Parzival. (in Arthurian legend) a knight in King Arthur's court

Word History and Origins

Origin of Percival¹

From Old French Perceval, of disputed origin; perhaps literally “pierce the valley” ( pierce ( def. ), vale ( def. ) ) or “through this valley” (from par “through” + cel “this” + val “valley”; per ( def. ) ); alternatively, an alteration of Welsh Peredur

Example Sentences

Black actor Dominic Hoffman, meanwhile, voiced the white character of Huckleberry Finn and Jim, the protagonist, for Percival Everett’s “James,” winning an Audie and an L.A.

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The point was driven home for me by a scene in Percival Everett’s timely 2024 novel “James,” a rendition of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” told from the perspective of the title character, an escaped slave.

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Well before there was Elon Musk, there was Percival Lowell.

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The most glaring evidence was a now-notorious “summer reading list,” which recommended 15 books, five of them real, 10 of them imaginary, with summaries of fake titles like Isabel Allende’s Tidewater Dreams, Min Jin Lee’s Nightshade Market, Rebecca Makkai’s Boiling Point, and Percival Everett’s The Rainmakers.

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After he died, his work lived on through his novels, and his influence has endured — this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “James” by Percival Everett, reverses the roles of the main characters in Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” replacing the narration of the teenaged Huck with that of the slave Jim.

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