The Collaborative International Dictionary
Knight-errant \Knight"-er`rant\, n.; pl. Knight-errants, or Knights-errant. A wandering knight; a knight who traveled in search of adventures, for the purpose of exhibiting military skill, prowess, and generosity.
Wiktionary
alt. 1 A knight in a medieval romance who wanders in search of adventure and opportunities to prove his chivalry. 2 A person who displays an adventurous or a quixotic spirit. n. 1 A knight in a medieval romance who wanders in search of adventure and opportunities to prove his chivalry. 2 A person who displays an adventurous or a quixotic spirit.
WordNet
n. a wandering knight travelling in search of adventure
Wikipedia
A knight-errant (or knight errant and white knight) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective errant (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric virtues, either in knightly duels ( pas d'armes) or in some other pursuit of courtly love.
The template of the knight-errant are the heroes of the Round Table of the Arthurian cycle such as Gawain, Lancelot and Percival. The quest par excellence in pursuit of which these knights wander the lands is that of the Holy Grail, such as in Perceval, the Story of the Grail written by Chrétien de Troyes in the 1180s.
Although the character is part of the romance genre as it developed during the late 12th century, the term "knight-errant" itself is younger, for the first time recorded (as knygt erraunt) in the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Knight-errantry tales remain popular with courtly audiences throughout the Late Middle Ages. They are written in Middle French, in Middle English and in Middle German. In the 16th century, the genre becomes highly popular in the Iberian Peninsula, Amadis de Gaula was one of the most successful knight-errantry tales of this period. In Don Quixote (1605), Cervantes burlesqued the romances and their popularity. Tales of knight-errantry then fell out of fashion for two centuries, until they re-emerged in the form of the historical novel in Romanticism.
Usage examples of "knight-errant".
Sir Nigel had with him Sir William Felton, Sir Oliver Buttesthorn, stout old Sir Simon Burley, the Scotch knight-errant, the Earl of Angus, and Sir Richard Causton, all accounted among the bravest knights in the army, together with sixty veteran men-at-arms, and three hundred and twenty archers.
And, lastly, what knight-errant has there been, is there, or will there ever be in the world, not bold enough to give, single-handed, four hundred cudgellings to four hundred officers of the Holy Brotherhood if they come in his way?
That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, be borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.
That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.
That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.
Don Quixote turned to the duchess and said, "Your highness may conceive that never had knight-errant in this world a more talkative or a droller squire than I have, and he will prove the truth of what I say, if your highness is pleased to accept of my services for a few days.
Three months ago, therefore, I went out to meet him as a knight-errant, under the assumed name of the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to engage him in combat and overcome him without hurting him, making it the condition of our combat that the vanquished should be at the disposal of the victor.
Humble with the proud, haughty with the humble, encounterer of dangers, endurer of outrages, enamoured without reason, imitator of the good, scourge of the wicked, enemy of the mean, in short, knight-errant, which is all that can be said!
I am a knight-errant, and not one of those whose names Fame has never thought of immortalising in her record, but of those who, in defiance and in spite of envy itself, and all the magicians that Persia, or Brahmans that India, or Gymnosophists that Ethiopia ever produced, will place their names in the temple of immortality, to serve as examples and patterns for ages to come, whereby knights-errant may see the footsteps in which they must tread if they would attain the summit and crowning point of honour in arms.
The legend of this city and its unfathomable riches had been repeated by all of the Spanish chroniclers, and for seventy years the conquistadores, those knight-errants of the jungle, had navigated the Orinoco and its tributaries in search of it.
Although he found no sign of it, other would-be discoverers were undaunted, and for the next few decades one conquistador after another set off into the jungle like knight-errants in the romances of chivalry so popular at the time.
Letting her knight-errants do all the dirty work is kinda tough on you.
Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be a knight-errant than a shepherd!
In the Isle of Man the wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant.