as in villain
a mean, evil, or unprincipled person
he plays the role of the duplicitous knave who tries to foil the play's hero
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Recent Examples of knave
How does history distinguish knaves from legendary figures?
—
W.e. Gutman, Sun Sentinel, 8 July 2025
Human beings are motivated by virtue (knights) or rigid self-interest (knaves), or are passive victims of their circumstances (pawns).
—Sachin H. Jain, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024
W.e. Gutman, Sun Sentinel, 8 July 2025
Human beings are motivated by virtue (knights) or rigid self-interest (knaves), or are passive victims of their circumstances (pawns).
—Sachin H. Jain, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for knave
Noun
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The iconic villain, portrayed by Robert Mitchum in 1962’s Cape Fear and by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 version, is back on screen in the new Apple TV adaptation.—
Kirsten Chuba,
HollywoodReporter,
3 June 2026
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Dead-end conflict is where the hero and the villain, the good guys and the bad guys, essentially never have any opportunity for movement or reconciliation at the end of the story.—
Dana Taylor,
USA Today,
3 June 2026
Noun
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Historically speaking, the Allied Supreme Commander wasn’t considered an angry brute so much as a steady diplomat who was capable of sudden, persuasive rage.—
Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
26 May 2026
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Even the consumer-level codes that encrypt your online banking are so hard to break that every computer on the planet working together would need longer than the age of the universe to brute-force them apart.—
David M. Ewalt,
Scientific American,
19 May 2026
Noun
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The Amazon television series Good Omens, which ended this month, came closest—but that book, a comedy about an angel and a devil teaming up to avert Armageddon, was co-written with Neil Gaiman, and the source material ran out after the first season in any case.—
Helen Lewis,
The Atlantic,
24 May 2026
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Angels and devils working together to stop Armageddon.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
15 May 2026
Noun
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Honestly, who can afford a trip to a monster festival this summer?—
Jed Gottlieb,
Boston Herald,
31 May 2026
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Being bitten by Pirate Clark may have been a manifestation of Clark's deepest emotional wounds and desires — or maybe the monster just needed a meal.—
Emily Blackwood,
PEOPLE,
30 May 2026
Noun
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The Indians in Westerns had war paint and whooped like savages.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 May 2026
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Nature can be a lot of things—beautiful, bloody, sweet, savage.—
Jeffrey Kluger,
Time,
25 May 2026
Noun
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Paxton, meanwhile, is known for being a scoundrel.—
Nicole Russell,
USA Today,
28 May 2026
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New Orleans has long been notorious for embracing such scoundrels, a reputation that isn’t exactly helped by the fact that, for many years, disgraced attorneys who lost their licenses in Louisiana and applied for readmission to the bar often got it.—
Patrick Radden Keefe,
New Yorker,
13 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Knave.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/knave. Accessed 5 Jun. 2026.
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