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Knave vs Coward - What's the difference?

knave | coward |

As nouns the difference between knave and coward

is that knave is (archaic) a boy; especially, a boy servant while coward is a person who lacks courage.

As an adjective coward is

cowardly.

knave

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (archaic) A boy; especially, a boy servant.
  • (archaic) Any male servant; a menial.
  • A tricky, deceitful fellow; a dishonest person; a rogue; a villain.
  • *
  • *:I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.
  • *1977 , (Geoffrey Chaucer), (The Canterbury Tales) , Penguin Classics, p. 204:
  • *:God's bones! Whenever I go to beat those knaves / my tapsters, out she [my wife] comes with clubs and staves, / "Go on!" she screams — and its a caterwaul — / "You kill those dogs! Break back and bones and all!"
  • (cards) A playing card marked with the figure of a servant or soldier; a jack.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * knavery * knavish

    coward

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person who lacks courage.
  • * 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
  • He tortured himself to find out how he could make his declaration to her, and always halting between the fear of displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward , he wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took energetic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put it off to times that he again deferred.

    Synonyms

    * chicken * See also

    Derived terms

    * cowardly * cowardice

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Cowardly.
  • *, II.17:
  • *:It is a coward and servile humour, for a man to disguise and hide himselfe under a maske, and not dare to shew himselfe as he is.
  • * Shakespeare
  • He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
  • * Prior
  • Invading fears repel my coward joy.
  • (heraldry, of a lion) Borne in the escutcheon with his tail doubled between his legs.
  • English words suffixed with -ard