wergeld
/ˈwɛəɡɛld/US/ˈweɹɡɛld/
wergeld noun: blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide; such a reparative payment or compensation.
Noun
wergeld (countable and uncountable, plural wergelds)
- Blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide; such a reparative payment or compensation.
- The first law we find is one of Æthelbirht's:—"if a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his 'wer-geld,' and provide another wife with his own money, and bring her to the other."1862, John Benjamin Marsden, The Influence of the Mosaic Code Upon Subsequent Legislation, →ISBN
- If, then, at the time of the laws we look at the class of landowners who were prominent as odalmen or haulds—typical men with wergelds originally of 100 cows—they were not only men of full kindred whose full pedigree of freedom went back the necessary nine generations, but their grandfather’s...1902, Frederic Seebohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law, Longmans, Green and Co., page 272
- Synonyms:
- wer
wergeld meaning in Arabic and Persian
wergeld in Arabic
- Translations
- دِيَة diya
wergeld in Persian
- Translations
- خونبها xunbahâ
Examples of wergeld in a sentence
- In its opening article the equality of the wergeld of a Novgorodian Slav with that of a Kievan Russian is proclaimed.1973, George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, →ISBN:
- In these clauses a lord had the duty of yielding up his esne if he was guilty of homicide and paying the dead man's wergeld.1995, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred Until the Twelfth Century, →ISBN:
- A person's class could be determined by the amount of his or her wergeld.2005, Jean A. Stuntz, Hers, His, and Theirs: Community Property Law in Spain and Early Texas, →ISBN:
Synonyms of wergeld
Forms of wergeld
| plural | wergelds |
|---|---|
| alternative form | wehrgeld |
| alternative form | weregeld |
| alternative form | weregild |
| alternative form | were gild |
| alternative form | wergelt |
| alternative form | wergild |
Origin of wergeld
Learned borrowing from Old English werġeld, wereġeld (“compensation for a man killed”), from Proto-West Germanic *werageld. More at wer, geld.
Questions about wergeld
- What does wergeld mean?
- Wergeld means blood money, the monetary value assigned to a person, set according to their rank, used to determine the compensation paid by the perpetrator of a crime to the victim in the case of injury or to the victim's kindred in the case of homicide; such a reparative payment or compensation.
- What is wergeld in Arabic?
- Wergeld in Arabic is دِيَة (diya). See Wergeld meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use wergeld in a sentence?
- In its opening article the equality of the wergeld of a Novgorodian Slav with that of a Kievan Russian is proclaimed.
- What part of speech is wergeld?
- Wergeld is a noun.
- How do you pronounce wergeld?
- Wergeld is pronounced /ˈwɛəɡɛld/ (UK).
- What is the plural of wergeld?
- The plural of wergeld is wergelds.
Words near wergeld in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wergeld (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-wergeld.wav.
Cite this entry: “wergeld.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wergeld. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.