Forms: 7 lancequene(n)t, lansquenight, 7–8 lanskenet, 8 landsquenet, (sense 2 only, lamb-skin-it), 7, 9 lansquenett(e, 9 (sense 2) lansquinnet, 7– lansquenet β. (sense 1 only) 9 landsknecht, lanzknecht. See also LANCE-KNIGHT. [a. F. lansquenet, ad. G. landsknecht lit. servant of the country, f. lands (gen.) country + knecht servant. The Ger. word was at an early date miswritten lanzknecht, as if f. lanz lance.]
1. Hist. One of a class of mercenary soldiers in the German and other continental armies in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Originally applied to the serfs brought into the field by the nobles within the territories of the Empire, in contradistinction to the Swiss mercenaries. Subsequently this distinction became obsolete, and the designation seems to have connoted a particular kind of equipment, of which a lance was part.
1607. Dekker, Knight’s Conjuring (Percy), 59. Our lansquenight of Lowe-Germanie.
1608. E. Grimstone, Hist. France (1611), 662. Christopher … brought ten thousand Lansquenets to passe the Alpes.
1622. A. Court, Constancie, I. 8. Certaine Women … cryed out,… That the Lanskenets had eaten vp Children.
1726–31. Tindal, Rapin’s Hist. Eng., XVII. (1743), II. 138. Ten thousand Switzers, two thousand Landsquenets.
1824. Byron, Deformed Transf., I. ii. From some Stray bullet of our lansquenets.
1845. S. Austin, trans. Ranke’s Hist. Ref., I. 235. In the year 1513, the authorities hesitated to punish some deserters from the Landsknechts.
1855. Motley, Dutch Rep., II. ii. (1866), 163. Some were disguised as hussars, some as miners, some as lansquenettes.
1884. Contemp. Rev., June, 818. He gave up entire communes to be pillaged by the lansquenets.
β. In the incorrect Ger. form lansknecht.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng., I. 240. If … his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City.
2. A game at cards, of German origin.
1687. Lond. Gaz., No. 2263/3. Strictly forbidding all Persons … to use or allow any Gaming in their Houses, more particularly the Games of Hoca, Bassett, or Lansquenett.
1707. J. Stevens, Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 204. We play’d at Lanskenet.
1735. Bailey, Lamb Skin-it, a certain Game at Cards.
1766. Anstey, Bath Guide, ix. (1804), 72. And to play I bid adieu, Hazard, lansquenet, and loo, Fairest nymph, to dance with you.
1859. Thackeray, Virgin., xli. He dines at White’s ordinary, and sits down to Macco and lansquenet afterwards.
1885. Mabel Collins, Prettiest Woman, vi. Each day she dreaded to hear that he had lost everything at lansquenet.
