a. [f. KNAVE sb. + -ISH1.] Characteristic of or appropriate to a knave; having the character of a knave.
† 1. Low, vulgar; obscene. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Manciple’s T., 101. His wyf anoon hath for hir lemman sent. Hir lemman? certes, þis is a knauyssh speche. Forȝeueth it me.
a. 1529. Skelton, Col. Cloute, 653. Howe ye were wonte to drynke Of a lether bottell With a knauysshe stoppell.
† 2. Roguish, rascally, mischievous, impertinent.
1552. Huloet, Knauishe, proteruus.
1573. Baret, Alv., K 87. A Knappish, or knauish tongue, lingua proterua.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., II. i. 32. That shrew’d and knauish spirit Cal’d Robin Good-fellow. Ibid., III. ii. 440. Cupid is a knauish lad, Thus to make poor females mad.
1603. Dekker, Grissil (Shaks. Soc.), 15. You may be ashamed to lay such knavish burden upon old age’s shoulders.
3. Basely unprincipled, fraudulent, rascally.
1570. Levins, Manip., 145/33. Knauish, peruersus.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 250. ’Tis a knauish peece of worke.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Two Oxf. Schol., Wks. 1730, I. 8. Some … are poor and cannot pay, and others knavish and will not pay.
a. 1800. Cowper, Ep. Protest. Lady, 6. Praise is the medium of a knavish trade.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. v. 405. It was a knavish piece of business.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xxiii. V. 38. He had employed a knavish Jew to forge endorsements of names.
