Word.ws English Dictionary

galdr

galdr noun: an ancient form of shamanic chanting, an improvisational magical song, especially for a protective effect. Compare the custom of the joik and other chanting traditions among the Sámi shamanic noaidi who shares mutual influence with the Norse shamanic vǫlva and other Norse magical customs.

Noun

galdr (plural galdrar or galdrs)

  1. An ancient form of shamanic chanting, an improvisational magical song, especially for a protective effect. Compare the custom of the joik and other chanting traditions among the Sámi shamanic noaidi who shares mutual influence with the Norse shamanic vǫlva and other Norse magical customs.
    Synonyms:
    galder
    1. A similar style of chanting that is a modern reinvention of Norse and later magical traditions.
      • There are different kinds of galdr; the most common is runegaldr, which consists of singing the various names of a single rune with Intent.2012, Raven Kaldera, Galina Krasskova, Neolithic Shamanism: Spirit Work in the Norse Tradition

Synonyms of galdr

Forms of galdr

pluralgaldrar
pluralgaldrs

Origin of galdr

Borrowed from Old Norse galdr (“witchcraft, sorcery, magic arts”), akin to Old English ġealdor (“incantation, magic”). Related to English gale, yell.

Questions about galdr

What does galdr mean?
Galdr means an ancient form of shamanic chanting, an improvisational magical song, especially for a protective effect. Compare the custom of the joik and other chanting traditions among the Sámi shamanic noaidi who shares mutual influence with the Norse shamanic vǫlva and other Norse magical customs.
What part of speech is galdr?
Galdr is a noun.
What is the plural of galdr?
The plural of galdr is galdrar.

Words near galdr in the dictionary

  1. Galdieri
  2. Galdikas
  3. Galdikases
  4. Galdorisi
  5. Galdos
  6. galdr
  7. galdrar
  8. galdrs
  9. gale
  10. Gale Crater
  11. gale force

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: galdr (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “galdr.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/galdr. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.