Word.ws English Dictionary

viking

/ˈvaɪkɪŋ/

viking is the alternative letter-case form of Viking.

Noun capitalized: Viking

Viking (plural Vikings)

  1. (historical) Scandinavian/Northern European seafarers, most familiarly raiders and pirates during the Viking age.
    • Henchmen had placed, as was their habit, each warrior's gear and trappings above his pile of skins. Thus you could see the burnished helmet of each warrior set in readiness above his head. It was the Viking habit.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 33
  2. (broadly) A stock character common in the fantasy genre, namely a barbarian, generally equipped with an axe or sword and a helmet adorned with horns.
  3. (colloquial) A Norseman (medieval Scandinavian).
  4. (colloquial, humorous, mildly, offensive) An ethnic Swede, Norwegian, Dane, Icelander or Faroe Islander.
  5. A player on the Minnesota Vikings NFL team.
  6. (Japan) buffet; smorgasbord

Proper noun capitalized: Viking

Viking

  1. A sea area between Scotland and Norway
  2. A town in Alberta, Canada.
  3. A city in Minnesota.

Forms of viking

pluralvikings
pluralVikings

Origin of viking

Borrowed from Old Norse víkingr (“Viking”). Already in Old English as wīċing and Old Frisian wītsing, but assumed extinct in Middle English and borrowed anew in the 19th century; any survivals in dialect through the Middle Ages are unknown. Old Norse víkingr itself is from Old Norse vík (“inlet, cove, fjord”) + -ingr (“one belonging to, one who frequents”) (the -r is the nominative desinence). Thus, “one from or who frequents the sea’s inlets”. The Old English and Anglo-Frisian form, existing since at least the eighth century, could also have been derived from or influenced by Old English wīc (“camp”), on account of the temporary encampments which were often a prominent feature of the Vikings’ raids. Others proposals were made, like e.g. deriving víkingr from the root related to the verb víkja or deriving both English and Old Norse words to *wīkingaz related to víkja or wīc.

Words formed from viking

Phrases with viking

Words that rhyme with viking

Questions about viking

What does viking mean?
Viking means scandinavian/Northern European seafarers, most familiarly raiders and pirates during the Viking age.
What is viking the alternative letter-case form of?
Viking is the alternative letter-case form of Viking.
What part of speech is viking?
Viking can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce viking?
Viking is pronounced /ˈvaɪkɪŋ/.
What is the plural of viking?
The plural of viking is vikings.

Words near viking in the dictionary

  1. Vikas Nagar
  2. vike
  3. Viken
  4. vikes
  5. Vikhyat
  6. viking
  7. Viking Age
  8. Viking disease
  9. Viking metal
  10. Viking ship
  11. Viking ships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: viking (page history and authors); Viking (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Viking.wav.

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