What is another word for knavish?

Pronunciation: [nˈe͡ɪvɪʃ] (IPA)

Knavish is a term that describes someone who is untrustworthy, deceitful and dishonest. There are plenty of synonyms that can be used for knavish, such as sneaky, devious, cunning, tricky, sly, dishonest, unscrupulous, fraudulent, and conniving. Each of these words is used to depict someone who is dishonest and does not act in an upright manner. They could use these traits to cheat on others and achieve their goals through fraudulent means. While there may be a certain level of planning that goes into their actions, the outcome is always the same- it leads to mistrust and anxiety among others.

Synonyms for Knavish:

What are the hypernyms for Knavish?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

What are the opposite words for knavish?

Knavish can be defined as dishonest or untrustworthy. Its antonyms can include trustworthy, honest, honorable, and reliable. These words describe someone who is truthful and can be relied upon to keep their word. Other antonyms for knavish include sincere, ethical, and upright. These words suggest a person who is principled and guided by a strong moral compass. The opposite of knavish can also be described as transparent, open, and forthcoming. These words describe someone who is not hiding anything and is willing to share information openly. In short, the antonyms for knavish represent qualities that are desirable in a person and that make them trustworthy and respected.

What are the antonyms for Knavish?

Usage examples for Knavish

It need not," he gave a little knavish laugh, "be all strictly correct according to 'Ume and Smollett.
"A Poached Peerage"
William Magnay
The incomparable Sir Melville hath all the good knights writing editorials this eve, from the hoary and senile Dock down to the knavish squire that sweeps out the castle.
"Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions"
Slason Thompson
For this the Jacksonians were solely and absolutely responsible; they drove out the merit system of making appointments, and introduced the "spoils" system in its place; and under the latter they chose a peculiarly dishonest and incapable set of officers, whose sole recommendation was to be found in the knavish trickery and low cunning that enabled them to manage the ignorant voters who formed the backbone of Jackson's party.
"Thomas Hart Benton"
Theodore Roosevelt

Famous quotes with Knavish

  • An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight.
    Hilaire Belloc
  • The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass-man — be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper — gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass-woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass-man’s untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible.
    Albert Jay Nock
  • If there be in nature such a principle as justice, it is necessarily the only principle there ever was, or ever will be.  All the other so-called political principles, which men are in the habit of inventing, are not principles at all.  They are either the mere conceits of simpletons, who imagine they have discovered something better than truth, and justice, and universal law; or they are mere devices and pretences, to which selfish and knavish men resort as means to get fame, and power, and money.
    Lysander Spooner
  • but he was above all the true founder of that terrible civic proletariat flattered and paid by the classes above it, which was through it aggregation in the capital - the natural consequence of the largesses of corn - at once utterly demoralized and made conscious of its power, and which - with its pretensions, sometimes stupid, sometimes knavish, and its talk of the sovereignty of the people - lay like an incubus for five hundred years upon the Roman commonwealth and only perished along with it.
    Theodor Mommsen
  • The more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. Like knavish cards, the leaves of all great books were covertly packed. He was but packing one set the more; and that a very poor jaded set and pack indeed. So that there was nothing he more spurned, than his own aspirations; nothing he more abhorred than the loftiest part of himself. The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.
    Herman Melville

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