Also 6 Sc. knaifrie. [f. KNAVE sb. + -ERY.]
1. Performance characteristic of a knave; dishonest and crafty dealing; trickery, roguery. With a and pl., A knavish deed or practice.
1528. Tindale, Obed. Chr. Man, Wks. (1573), 147/2. Because of a litle knauery which a Deacon at Constantinople plaide thorough confession with one of the chiefe wiues of the citie.
1546. Bale, Eng. Votaries, I. (1560), 64. All suche knaueryes must haue a pretensed colour.
1612. Dekker, If it be not Good, Wks. 1873, III. 312. The Sun sees much Knauery in a yere, and the Moone more in a quarter.
1673. Temple, Ess., Ireland, Wks. 1731, I. 115. The Unskilfulness, or Carelesness, or Knavery of the Traders.
1724. Ramsay, Vision, xiii. Knaivry, and slaivrie, Ar equally dispysd.
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physick (1762), p. xiv. Either through the Ignorance or Knavery of Physicians.
1870. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xxxiii. 10. He frustrates their knaveries, and makes their promising plots to end in nothing.
b. As a mock title: = KNAVESHIP 1.
1871. R. Ellis, Catullus, xxxiii. 5. Please your knaveries hoist a sail for exile, Pains and privacy?
† 2. In weakened sense: Roguishness, waggishness, playing of tricks. Obs.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 346. This is thy negligence, still thou mistak’st, Or else committ’st thy knaueries wilfully. Ibid. (1599), Hen. V., IV. vii. 52. He was full of iests, and gypes, and knaueries, and mockes.
1646. Evelyn, Diary, 7 Oct. Yet are they chereful and full of knavery.
† b. concr. Tricks of dress or adornment. Obs.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. iii. 58. With Scarfes, and Fannes, and double change of brau’ry, With Amber Bracelets, Beades, and all this knau’ry.
† 3. A popular name for the plant Narthecium ossifragum, Bog Asphodel. (Cf. honesty, pride, thrift.) Obs.
[1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, § 151. Put no Lubberworte into theyr potage, and beware of knauerynge aboute theyr hert.]
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 1219. My good friend Doctor Anthony Salter of Exeter,… could understand of the countrey people no other name thereof, or propertie appropriate unto it but knavery.
