Word.ws English Dictionary

valar morghulis

valar morghulis phrase: an expression used as an acknowledgement of human mortality and the inevitability of death.

Phrase

valar morghulis

  1. (slang) An expression used as an acknowledgement of human mortality and the inevitability of death.
    • On a philosophical note, there has never been a moment in my life where I’ve truly considered the gravity of death. Yes I know, “All men must die,” but I’m a writer, not a BASE jumper. I spend most of my time behind a bright computer screen, thinking. Yet as I started driving along the edge of a...2015, Hannah Jane Cohen, "A Road Trip To Djúpavík", The Reykjavík Grapevine, 5 June 2015 - 18 June 2015, page 31
    • In 2015, different beasts threaten our lives—heart disease, cancers, and chronic airway diseases comprise the majority of our disease burden. Valar morghulis—all men must die.2015, Keegan Guidolin & Matthew Douglas-Vail, "What kills us and what costs us: An examination of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge", University of Western Ontario Medical Journal, Volume 84, Issue 1...

Origin of valar morghulis

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 morghūlis, which means all men must die in the fictional language of High Valyrian, is used as a greeting by the Faceless Men, a combination of a death cult and assassin's guild. The traditional response is valar dohaeris (“all men must serve”).

Questions about valar morghulis

What does valar morghulis mean?
Valar morghulis means an expression used as an acknowledgement of human mortality and the inevitability of death.
What part of speech is valar morghulis?
Valar morghulis is a phrase.

Words near valar morghulis in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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