varlet

English

Etymology

From Old French varlet. Compare valet.

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ˈvɑːlət/

Noun

varlet (plural varlets)

(obsolete) A servant or attendant.
- 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 8, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, OCLC 191225086, book II (The Ancient Monk):
  The Winchester Manorhouse has fled bodily, like a Dream of the old Night […] . House and people, royal and episcopal, lords and varlets, where are they?
(historical) Specifically, a youth acting as a knight's attendant at the beginning of his training for knighthood.
- 1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], OCLC 224313202, page 138:
  [T]here was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.
(archaic) A rogue or scoundrel.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 410:
  My lady to be called a nasty Scotch wh–re by such a varlet!—To be sure I wish I had knocked his brains out with the punchbowl.
- 1886, Henry James, chapter VIII, in The Bostonians, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., OCLC 3179002, pages 57–58:
  He was false, cunning, vulgar, ignoble; the cheapest kind of human product […] The white, puffy mother, with the high forehead, in the corner there, looked more like a lady; but if she were one, it was all the more shame to her to have mated with such a varlet, Ransom said to himself, making use, as he did generally, of terms of opprobrium extracted from the older English literature.
(obsolete, card games) The jack.

Translations

A servant or attendant

Bulgarian: слуга (bg) m (sluga)
Russian: слуга́ (ru) m (slugá), паж (ru) m (paž)

a youth acting as a knight's attendant at the beginning of his training for knighthood

Bulgarian: паж m (paž), щитоносец m (štitonosec)
Dutch: schildknaap (nl), page (nl)
Russian: оружено́сец (ru) m (oruženósec)

a rogue or scoundrel

Bulgarian: мошеник (bg) m (mošenik)
Irish: bithiúnach m
Russian: негодя́й (ru) m (negodjáj)

the jack

Bulgarian: вале n (vale)
Dutch: boer (nl)
Russian: вале́т (ru) m (valét)

Anagrams

retval, travel

Old French

Noun

varlet m (oblique plural varlez or varletz, nominative singular varlez or varletz, nominative plural varlet)

Alternative form of vaslet