Word.ws English Dictionary

knarr

/nɔːɹ/

knarr noun: a kind of Norse merchant ship used by the Vikings.

knarr: a kind of Norse merchant ship used by the Vikings
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

knarr (plural knarrs)

  1. (historical) A kind of Norse merchant ship used by the Vikings.
    • Mogens and Morten followed him on the two knarrs, but behind them to the north two other ships could be sighted.2003, James Richard Larson, The Eye of Odin, page 341
    • One of the other ships found in the bay was a knarr, a type of ship the Vikings used for trading and exploring. The knarr was about the same length as the small longship, but it was much wider […]Knarrs were wider because that gave them more room for livestock and objects for trade.2004, Janey Levy, At Sea on a Viking Ship, page 8
  2. A type of modern long-keeled sailing boat.
    • This summer, one of these Knarrs is being delivered to Johannes Westergaard of New York, and another to Gerhard Lorenz of the Grosse Isle Yacht Club, Michigan.1954 June, Motor Boating, page 100
    • The Knarr soon attracted the interest of local regatta sailors, who liked its lines and performance.
      Back in Scandinavia, the Danish Sailing Association became interested in building Knarrs.2008, Dieter Loibner, Folkboat Story: From Cult to Classic—the Renaissance of a Legend, page 39

Proper noun capitalized: Knarr

Knarr (plural Knarrs)

  1. A surname.

Forms of knarr

Noun
pluralknarrs
alternative formknorr
Proper noun
pluralKnarrs

Origin of knarr

From Old Norse knǫrr (“merchant ship”).

From the German surname used as a nickname for a hunchback, from knorr (“lump”), which is cognate with knar (“lump, tree knot”).

Questions about knarr

What does knarr mean?
Knarr means a kind of Norse merchant ship used by the Vikings.
What part of speech is knarr?
Knarr can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce knarr?
Knarr is pronounced /nɔːɹ/.
What is the plural of knarr?
The plural of knarr is knarrs.

Words near knarr in the dictionary

  1. Knaresdale with Kirkhaugh
  2. knarl
  3. knarled
  4. knarls
  5. knarly
  6. knarr
  7. knarred
  8. knarrs
  9. knarry
  10. knars
  11. Knarsdale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knarr (page history and authors); Knarr (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.

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