Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of traveling or roving about, especially in search of adventure.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wandering; a roving or rambling about.
  • noun The condition or way of life of a knight errant. See knight-errantry.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A wandering; a roving; esp., a roving in quest of adventures.
  • noun The employment of a knight-errant.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state of roving in search of chivalrous adventure

Etymologies

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Examples

  • No sooner therefore was she determined to take the first opportunity of quitting the protection of her husband, than she resolved to cast herself under the protection of some other man; and whom could she so properly choose to be her guardian as a person of quality, of fortune, of honour; and who, besides a gallant disposition which inclines men to knight-errantry, that is, to be the champions of ladies in distress, had often declared a violent attachment to herself, and had already given her all the instances of it in his power?

    History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Henry Fielding 1730

  • Allowing themselves to be caught up in the magical and analgesic balm of his knight errantry, they show that they read: we can be influenced by honeyed words and gallant deeds.

    James Scarborough: Man of La Mancha at Musical Theatre West James Scarborough 2012

  • Allowing themselves to be caught up in the magical and analgesic balm of his knight errantry, they show that they read: we can be influenced by honeyed words and gallant deeds.

    James Scarborough: Man of La Mancha at Musical Theatre West James Scarborough 2012

  • Allowing themselves to be caught up in the magical and analgesic balm of his knight errantry, they show that they read: we can be influenced by honeyed words and gallant deeds.

    James Scarborough: Man of La Mancha at Musical Theatre West James Scarborough 2012

  • I will tell you the matter at length, for it is comical enough; and why should not you list to my juridical adventures, as well as I to those of your fiddling knight-errantry?

    Redgauntlet 2008

  • 'But, I believe,' he said, 'some genius of officiousness has today taken possession of me, for I began it upon a Quixote sort of enterprise, and a spirit of knight-errantry seems willing to accompany me through it to the end.'

    Camilla 2008

  • A tone of romantic and chivalrous gallantry (which, however, was often disgraced by unbounded license) characterized the intercourse between the sexes; and the language of knight errantry was yet used, and its observances followed, though the pure spirit of honourable love and benevolent enterprise which it inculcates had ceased to qualify and atone for its extravagances.

    Quentin Durward 2008

  • It has its longueurs and at times is longsome enough; but it is interesting as a comparison between the chivalry of Al – Islam and European knight-errantry.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • “From seeing the danger to which my incautious knight-errantry has exposed me; I begin, indeed, to take you for a very mischievous sort of person, and I fear the poor devil from whom I rescued you will be amply revenged for his disgrace, by finding that the first use you make of your freedom is to doom your deliverer to bondage.”

    Cecilia 2008

  • ALQUIFE, an enchanter in the mediaeval romances of knight-errantry.

    Redgauntlet 2008

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