Library / English Dictionary

VARLET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

In medieval times a youth acting as a knight's attendant as the first stage in training for knighthood

Synonyms:

page; varlet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("varlet" is a kind of...):

attendant; attender; tender (someone who waits on or tends to or attends to the needs of another)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A deceitful and unreliable scoundrel

Synonyms:

knave; rapscallion; rascal; rogue; scalawag; scallywag; varlet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("varlet" is a kind of...):

scoundrel; villain (a wicked or evil person; someone who does evil deliberately)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The bishop hath need of a champion, because, if any cause be set to test of combat, it would scarce become his office to go down into the lists with leather and shield and cudgel to exchange blows with any varlet.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If you are bent upon a quarrel with me I must leave you to your humor and drop into the 'Tete d'Or' here, for I marked a varlet pass the door who bare a smoking dish, which had, methought, a most excellent smell.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For this man was so swollen with pride that he would neither drink with us, nor sit at the same table with us, nor as much as answer a question, but must needs talk to the varlet all the time that it was well there was peace, and that he had slain more Englishmen than there were tags to his doublet.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At sight of his master's sudden departure, the varlet Watkin set off after him, with the pack-mule beside him, so that the four clattered away down the road together, until they swept round a curve and their babble was but a drone in the distance.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No fault, my fair lord, but a virtue: for how many rich ransoms have you won, and yet have scattered the crowns among page and archer and varlet, until in a week you had not as much as would buy food and forage.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet what assurance have we, said the prince, that this is not some varlet masquerading in his master's harness, or some caitiff knight, the very touch of whose lance might bring infamy upon an honorable gentleman?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)