The rank of Knight Bachelor (Kt) is a part of the British honours system.
It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight (the rank existed during the 13th century reign of King Henry III), but Knights Bachelor rank below knights of the various orders.
There is no female counterpart; women deserving an honour of this rank are appointed Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) instead.
Read more about Knight Bachelor: Criteria, Honorifics and Post-nominals, Insignia, Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor
Famous quotes containing the words knight and/or bachelor:
“By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon’d am to a tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.”
—Unknown. Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song (l. 57–60)
“The wonderful scope and variety of female loveliness, if too long suffered to sway us without decision, shall finally confound all power of selection. The confirmed bachelor is, in America, at least, quite as often the victim of a too profound appreciation of the infinite charmingness of woman, as made solitary for life by the legitimate empire of a cold and tasteless temperament.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)