knight-errant

[ nahyt-er-uhnt ]

noun,plural knights-er·rant.
  1. a wandering knight; a knight who traveled widely in search of adventures, to exhibit military skill, to engage in chivalric deeds, etc.

Origin of knight-errant

1
Middle English word dating back to 1300–50

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use knight-errant in a sentence

  • For two days he had faced death, fighting like a legionary or a knight-errant, and in short playing the hero.

    Overland | John William De Forest
  • He ought to have been born six or seven hundred years ago, he would have made a delightful knight-errant.

    A Roving Commission | G. A. Henty
  • As I live his horse is a mule—what a pity it was not some knight-errant!

    The Tiger Hunter | Mayne Reid
  • What can be more beautiful than a knight-errant's life, when he has good weapons, and more common sense than Don Quixote had?

    Columba | Prosper Merimee
  • I had already become a redresser of grievances; there only wanted a lady in the way to be a knight-errant in form.

British Dictionary definitions for knight errant

knight errant

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

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012