knights

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of knight.

   Armored knights charged across the field at the start of the battle.

   Two scientists and a retired general were among the new knights named on the honors list.

   Note

   A regular plural that gathers very different people: the armored, mounted warriors of the Middle Ages and the modern holders of a knighthood conferred by a monarch. Its possessive puts the apostrophe after the s, so the knights' horses belong to several riders and the knight's horse to one. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present form: the queen knights them.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular present of knight.

   Each year the monarch knights a few people for their service to the arts and sciences.

   Facing a stalemate trap, White knights the pawn rather than promoting it to a queen.

   Note

   Both uses of the verb need an object, and the object tells them apart: a monarch knights a person, conferring a knighthood, while in chess a player knights a pawn, promoting it to a knight. With a singular subject in the present, this is the form both take: she knights, the king knights, White knights the pawn.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2