Chevalier:
(plural: ‘chevaliers‘; pronunciation: the letters ‘ch’ are said with an ‘sh’ sound as in ‘shape’, and the end has two different pronunciations: one way is the letters ‘lier’ are said with a ‘leer’ sound — shah-va-leer, and the other way, which is commonly applied to the name of a person, is the ‘lier’ said with a ‘yey’ sound — shah-val-yey)
a chevalier
a member of certain honourable groups in former French society;
(old usage) a male member of the lowest rank of French noblemen;
a brave, polite and honourable man;
a knight; a cavalier,
Maurice Chevalier, French actor & singer
In the French legions, a chevalier was a brave horseman of talent — a mounted soldier.
The word ‘chevalier’ is a title used by those people in France in the middle ages who did not have any particular hereditary title of their own or who did not have membership in any of then existing order of merit, such as the ‘Legion of Honour’.
In the medieval France, a young strong man with good manners and decent behaviour was usually referred to as ‘chevalier’ though he did not belong to any order or any noble family.
