Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Dishonest or crafty dealing.
- n. An instance of trickery or mischief.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The action or character of a knave; dishonesty; deception in dealing; trickery; petty villainy; fraud.
- n. Roguishness; waggishness; tomfoolery.
- n. Narthecium ossifragum, the bog-asphodel.
Wiktionary
- n. The (mis)behaviour of a knave, boyish mischief.
- n. Deceit, an unprincipled action.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The practices of a knave; petty villainy; fraud; trickery; a knavish action.
- n. Roguish or mischievous tricks.
WordNet 3.0
- n. lack of honesty; acts of lying or cheating or stealing
Etymologies
- From knave + -ery of Germanic origin. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“And then came Black Leclère, to lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy life, to press and prod and mould till it became a big bristling beast, acute in knavery, overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical.”
“Leclère, to lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy life, to press and prod and mould till it became a big bristling beast, acute in knavery, overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical.”
“And then came Black Leclère, to lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy-life, to press and prod and mold it till it became a big, bristling beast, acute in knavery, overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical.”
“Cairo is a sharper and a past master in knavery, and he will certainly slay the Jew and bring hither the dress.’”
“Then a certain wanton slave of his belly, lamenting the prohibition against drink, adopted a deep kind of knavery, and found a new way to indulge his desires.”
“Now, I think that the longer we preserve that abhorrence for knavery which is the generous instinct of youth, why, the fairer will be our manhood, and the more reverend our age.”
“What strange confusion will the spectacle of that knavery which is universally practised through all the existing classes of society produce in the mind?”
“This is just the latest punch in a long fight against Google: last year the alliance compared the settlement to John D. Rockefeller's "knavery" in colluding with railroads in the 19th century.”
“Here too ought to be mentioned the knavery which is practised by officiales and other episcopal and spiritual officers, who ban, load, hunt and drive the poor people with great burdens, as long as a penny remains.”
“Book group cites Rockefeller's 'knavery' in countering Google deal book settlement, comparing the company's moves to John D. Rockefeller's "knavery" in colluding with railroads in the 19th”
WN.com - Articles related to The best 60 books of the past 60 years
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘knavery’.
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Outwardly secondary
vitiate, compenetrate, ingeminate, prolific, philoprogenitive, diaphaneity, diaphanous, saturnine, tepidness, inanity, knavery, adumbrate and 2 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Stalking Darkness
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Stalking Darkness.
inquest, halyard, catamount, occlude, founder, more, grouse, grapple, water butt, antepenultimate, palimpsest, hob and 196 more...
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Listless
Nowhere else to put these yet.
sibilant, cloying, pithy, apologia, odyssey, amanuensis, pleasantries, ginormous, burnish, sojourn, quonset, over-under and 217 more...
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Umbersorrow
Intangible, anthropic.
States of being are listed on oofy.njiju, glark, deplore, afterlithe, tagmass, spuriosity, forkful, chelation, oding, ploat, botnet, quedeship and 477 more...
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dienekes's Words
chutzpah, lexicon, intrepid, pedagogical, schlemiel, schism, erudite, anathema, pugilist, jaunty, paradigm, automaton and 949 more...
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Tory's First Wordie List
perambulate, mumpsimus, euphoric, peripatetic, mellifluous, soporific, neologism, nihilism, nepotism, effervescent, lascivious, esoteric and 217 more...
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Words to remember
adventive, affectation, ambiguous, anachronism, anesis, antithetic, apostasy, attenuate, authenticity, autodidact, -fic, bandolier and 146 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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set 14
from 66 to 70
conciliatory, wean, intractable, fissure, recant, asunder, stodgy, piety, ambulatory, pharisaical, philology, primordial and 79 more...
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Words
knavery, collation, bloviate, jargon, impugn, arcane, browbeat, vociferous, welter, caveat, consternation, abjure and 43 more...
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Old English Spelling Bee List
need to know these words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
quell, bower, keen, alderman, cleanser, sallow, gristle, nestle, abide, gospel, nether, farthing and 84 more...
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Wordnik list
new words
antithetical, pantheistic, abstruse, equanimity, ethics, ruminate, sunk cost, cognitive dissonance, ignominy, despot, elucidate, transitive verb and 64 more...
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April 2013
knavery, moribund, antediluvian, rube, trundle, cloying, errata, elegy, unvarnished, micturate, abutment, joyride and 19 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for knavery.

yarb Citation on fandango. Sep 6, 2008