"white knight" meaning in English

See white knight in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: white knights [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} white knight (plural white knights)
  1. (business) An individual or corporation that intends to acquire another company in order to avert a hostile takeover. Categories (topical): Business, People, Stock characters
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-noun-Y~M6GiGW Disambiguation of People: 24 32 13 27 4 0 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 26 27 10 11 13 13 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 38 5 15 15 19 8 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 51 5 11 11 15 7 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 53 4 10 10 12 11 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 42 8 12 13 16 10 Topics: business
  2. (fiction) A hero, savior, or righteous individual. Categories (topical): Fiction, People, Stock characters
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-noun-J3DpNZrM Disambiguation of People: 24 32 13 27 4 0 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 26 27 10 11 13 13 Topics: fiction, literature, media, publishing
  3. (figurative, derogatory) Someone who unnecessarily defends someone else. Tags: derogatory, figuratively Categories (topical): People
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-noun-vzRlQ1Gq Disambiguation of People: 24 32 13 27 4 0
  4. (figurative, derogatory) Someone who unnecessarily defends someone else.
    (informal, derogatory, Internet) A man who defends a woman in debate etc. in an attempt to gain her favour.
    Tags: Internet, derogatory, figuratively, informal Categories (topical): Internet, People, Stock characters Synonyms: doormat, simp
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-noun-RBziVcKo Disambiguation of People: 24 32 13 27 4 0 Disambiguation of Stock characters: 26 27 10 11 13 13
  5. A mushroom of species Tricholoma album. Categories (topical): Stock characters
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-noun-E9VWqwCt Disambiguation of Stock characters: 26 27 10 11 13 13
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: white-knight, whiteknight (english: for verb only)

Verb

Forms: white knights [present, singular, third-person], white knighting [participle, present], white knighted [participle, past], white knighted [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb}} white knight (third-person singular simple present white knights, present participle white knighting, simple past and past participle white knighted)
  1. (figurative, derogatory) To unnecessarily defend someone, especially in an attempt to gain favour. Tags: derogatory, figuratively Categories (topical): Stock characters Related terms: black knight, knight in shining armor, Translations (Hero): blanka kavaliro (Esperanto), chevalier blanc [masculine] (French), weißer Ritter [masculine] (German), 白騎士 (shiro kishi) (Japanese), белый рыцарь (belyj rycarʹ) (Russian), caballero blanco (Spanish), білий лицар (bilyj lycar) (Ukrainian)
    Sense id: en-white_knight-en-verb-S1rJDk4C Disambiguation of Stock characters: 26 27 10 11 13 13
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: white-knight, whiteknight (english: for verb only)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for white knight meaning in English (8.0kB)

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    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Hero",
      "word": "caballero blanco"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "bilyj lycar",
      "sense": "Hero",
      "word": "білий лицар"
    }
  ],
  "word": "white knight"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.