The Collaborative International Dictionary
Knight-errantry \Knight"-er`rant*ry\, n.; pl. Knight-errantries. The character or actions of wandering knights; the practice of wandering in quest of adventures; chivalry; a quixotic or romantic adventure or scheme.
The rigid guardian [i. e., conscience] of a blameless
heart
Is weak with rank knight-erratries o'errun.
--Young.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The character or actions of wandering knights; the practice of wandering in quest of adventures. 2 chivalry; a quixotic or romantic adventure or scheme.
Usage examples of "knight-errantry".
While Hotspur is engaged in foolhardy but romantic knight-errantry, Prince Hal is whiling away his time in a tavern in Eastcheap.
Quite a nice bit of knight-errantry, rescuing a Gymnogyps californianus , no less.
Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there IS money in it, after all, if you have luck.
They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much against Sancho's will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendant upon knight-errantry in woods and forests, even though at times plenty presented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego de Miranda's, at the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don Antonio Moreno's.
But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any knight-errant's squire made terms with his lord, 'you must give me so much a month for serving you'?
The history goes on to say, then, that when the bachelor Samson Carrasco recommended Don Quixote to resume his knight-errantry which he had laid aside, it was in consequence of having been previously in conclave with the curate and the barber on the means to be adopted to induce Don Quixote to stay at home in peace and quiet without worrying himself with his ill-starred adventures.
Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in the opening and shutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply all those deficiencies which you say check and discourage you from bringing before the world the story of your famous Don Quixote, the light and mirror of all knight-errantry.
In short, then, he remained at home fifteen days very quietly without showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions, and during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knights-errant were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be accomplished the revival of knight-errantry.