Chapter Kit Cats to Knights Baronets of K by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Knave of Sologne (A). More knave than fool. The French say “Un niais de Sologne. ” Sologne is a part of the departments of Loiret et Loire-et-Cher.

Knee Greek, gonu; Latin, genu; French, genou, Sanskrit, janu; Saxon, cneow; German, knie, English, knee.

Knee Tribute Adoration or reverence, by prostration or bending the knee.

“Coming to receive from us
Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile."
Milton: Paradise Lost, v. 782

Kneph The ram-headed god of ancient Egypt, called also Amen-ra, and by the Greeks, Ammon.

Knickerbocker (Diedrich). The imaginary author of a facetious History of New York, by Washington Irving.

Knickerbockers Loose knee-breeches, worn by boys, cyclists, sportsmen, tourists, etc. So named from George Cruikshank's illustrations of Washington Irving's book referred to above. In these illustrations the Dutch worthies are drawn with very loose knee-breeches.

Knife is the emblem borne by St. Agatha, St. Albert, and St. Christina.
   The flaying knife is the emblem of St. Bartholomew, because he was flayed.
   A sacrificing knife is borne in Christian art by St. Zadkiel, the angel.
   The knife of academic knots. Chrysippos, so called because he was the keenest disputant of his age (B.C. 280-207).
   War to the knife. Deadly strife.

Knife = sword or dagger.

“Till my keen knife see not the wound it makes.”
Shakespeare: Macbeth, i. 5.

Knife and Fork He is a capital knife-and-fork, a good trencherman.

“He did due honour to the repast; he ate and drank, and proved a capital knife-and-fork even at the risk of dying the same night of an indigestion.”- Gaboriau: Promise of Marriage, vi.

Knifeboard One of the seats for passengers running along the roof of an omnibus. Now almost obsolete.

Knight means simply a boy. (Saxon, cniht.) As boys (like the Latin puer and French garcon) were used as servants, so cniht came to mean a servant. Those who served the feudal kings bore arms, and persons admitted to this privilege were the king's knights; as this distinction was limited to men of family, the word became a title of honour next to the nobility. In modern Latin, a knight is termed auratus (golden), from the gilt spurs which he used to wear.
   Last of the knights. Maximilian I. of Germany (1459, 1493-1519).

Knight Rider Street (London). So named from the processions of knights from the Tower to Smithfield, where tournaments were held. Leigh Hunt says the name originated in a sign or some reference to the Heralds' College in the vicinity.

Knight of La Mancha Don Quixote de la Mancha, the hero of Cervantes' novel, called Don Quixote.

Knight of the Bleeding Heart The Bleeding Heart was one of the many semi-religious orders instituted in the Middle Ages in honour of the Virgin Mary, whose “heart was pierced with many sorrows.”

“When he was at Holyrood who would have said that the young, sprightly George Douglas would have been content to play the locksman here in Lochleven, with no gayer amusement than that of turning the key on two or three helpless women? A strange office for a Knight of the Bleeding Heart.”- Sir W. Scott: The Abbot, xxiii.

Knight of the Cloak (The). Sir Walter Raleigh. So called from his throwing his