cniht

Cniht is an Old English noun (masculine) used in early medieval England with meanings that shifted over time. In its earliest sense it referred to a youth or boy, and more broadly to a servant or retainer who performed tasks for a lord or household. As social and military structures evolved, the term began to denote a mounted warrior or soldier, and by the later part of the Old English period the sense increasingly aligned with the idea of a knight as a status within feudal society. Ultimately, in Middle English, the word that became “knight” carried the social prestige of a noble warrior, while its Old English ancestor retained the older, more general sense of a young man or servant.

Etymology and cognates point to a common Germanic origin. Cniht is thought to derive from Proto-Germanic roots linked to words for a servant or retainer. It is cognate with the Old High German kneht, and with the Dutch knecht and the modern German Knecht, all of which retain a meaning related to a servant. In English, the sense of a free, enlisted warrior emerges through the transition from a servant-retainer role to a titled knight in the medieval period.

Usage in sources is attested across Old English literature and legal or homiletic texts, where cniht appears as a general term for a male youth or servant and, in some contexts, for a warrior. Today, the word is primarily of historical and linguistic interest, appearing in discussions of Old English vocabulary and the evolution of the term that became knight. It is considered archaic in contemporary usage.