This week’s theme
Lewis Carroll

This week’s words
rabbit hole
phlizz
jabberwock
white knight

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(HWYT nyt)

MEANING:

noun:
1. One who comes to the rescue of another.
2. A well-meaning but ineffective helper.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old English hwit (white) + cniht (boy, servant). Earliest documented use: 1628; for sense 2: 1957.

NOTES:

Knights in shining armor have been rescuing damsels in distress for a long time. Also, colors have been used for signifying good and bad since forever. Over time the term white knight has developed specialized senses.

The second sense comes from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where the White Knight comes to Alice’s rescue but keeps falling off his horse.

In business, a white knight is a friendly investor who saves a company from a hostile takeover. In the online world, the term is often used pejoratively for someone who rushes to defend another (often a woman) in debates or comment threads, usually to win approval.

USAGE:

“She was perfectly capable of changing a tire herself, but she wouldn’t refuse a white knight, if one came along.”
V.M. Black; Taken; Swift River Media; 2014.

“When Nate is not on the receiving end of flesh-rending, bone-breaking gore, his hidden artistic talents and Dungeons & Dragons-esque gaming hobby offer this milquetoast wannabe white knight a few quirks.”
Jen Yamato; The Hero of This Action Comedy Can’t Feel Pain -- But We Sure Can; The Washington Post; Mar 14, 2025.

See more usage examples of white knight in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: