Nine Worthies

American  

plural noun

1. three pagan, three Jewish, and three Christian heroes mentioned together in medieval romances, usually including Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joshua, David, Judas Maccabaeus, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godefroy de Bouillon.

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Example Sentences

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Nine Worthies

Here was where the Nine Worthies used to come for their merry-making in their exuberant youth, and, as one of their number said afterward, "enlivened the solitude by their mad-cap pranks and juvenile orgies."

From A Little Girl of Long Ago by Amanda Minnie Douglas

The Chevelere Assigne, the ‘Knight of the Swan,’ is historically interesting, as giving the romantic origin of Godfrey the Crusader, who is the last of the Nine Worthies.

From Medieval English Literature Home University of Modern Knowledge #43 by W. P. (William Paton) Ker

In Act V. Scene ii., in lines that pertain to the revision of 1598, he is made to take the soldier's part again, in giving him the character of Hector in The Nine Worthies.

From Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 by Arthur Acheson

Sixteen stanzas, of which stanzas 6 to 14 introduce an independent digression on the Nine Worthies.

From Erthe Upon Erthe by Various

Painted with the Nine Worthies, among them King Henry VIII. holding a book, on it inscribed 'Verbum Dei'.

From Queen Mary and Harold by Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson