Word.ws English Dictionary

valar dohaeris

valar dohaeris phrase: an expression used as an affirmation of duty to a higher purpose or authority.

Phrase

valar dohaeris

  1. (slang) An expression used as an affirmation of duty to a higher purpose or authority.
    • If Valar Morghulis, then I shall do my very best in paying it forward in the time I have left. Valar Dohaeris.2014, "Acknowledgements", in Kathleen A. Moore, "Scrutiny on the Bounty: From Crisis Communication To Crisis Conversation", dissertation submitted to Pennsylvania State University, page xi
    • But soon there will be a new clickbait queen, as HBO's Game of Thrones gears up for its penultimate season this weekend. After that, you can expect endless recaps and speculations for the next two months, clogging up your social media feed (not to mention the endless memes) as the show moves beyond...2017 July 14, Josh Kupecki, “Stream Analysis”, in The Austin Chronicle, page 43

Origin of valar dohaeris

Coined by American writer and television producer George R. R. Martin for use in his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novel series. The phrase valar dohaeris means "all men must serve" in the fictional language of High Valyrian. It is a traditional response to valar morghulis (“all men must die”).

Questions about valar dohaeris

What does valar dohaeris mean?
Valar dohaeris means an expression used as an affirmation of duty to a higher purpose or authority.
What part of speech is valar dohaeris?
Valar dohaeris is a phrase.

Words near valar dohaeris in the dictionary

  1. valanches
  2. valancing
  3. Valandovo
  4. Valanginian
  5. valanimycin
  6. valar dohaeris
  7. valar morghulis
  8. valari
  9. Valarie
  10. valaris
  11. Valasek

Source and license

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