Word.ws English Dictionary

Scandiknavery

Scandiknavery noun: duplicity by or involving Scandinavians.

Noun

Scandiknavery (uncountable)

  1. (nonce-word) Duplicity by or involving Scandinavians.
    • For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery.1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC
    • Mrs. Christiani twice […] guesses that Kierkegaard may be behind this bit of Scandiknavery.1966, A Wake Newslitter, volume 3, page 114

Origin of Scandiknavery

Blend of Scandinavian + knavery. Coined by Irish novelist and poet James Joyce in his 1939 novel Finnegans Wake (see quotation below).

Questions about Scandiknavery

What does Scandiknavery mean?
Scandiknavery means duplicity by or involving Scandinavians.
What part of speech is Scandiknavery?
Scandiknavery is a noun.

Words near Scandiknavery in the dictionary

  1. scandicus
  2. Scandie
  3. Scandies
  4. Scandihoovian
  5. Scandihoovians
  6. Scandiknavery
  7. Scandinavia
  8. Scandinavian
  9. Scandinavian cross
  10. Scandinavian crosses
  11. Scandinavian Defence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Scandiknavery (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: “Scandiknavery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scandiknavery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.