erlking
/ˈɜːlkɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Alternative letter-case form of erlking.
Example Sentences
- "This line, and indeed the whole passage (lines 653-664), allude to the well-known poem by Goethe about the erlking, hoary enchanter of the elf-haunted alderwood, who falls in love with the delicate little boy of a belated traveler."
- "So easy for one young son to be swallowed up in a world teeming with Erlkings, real and imagined."
- "He was in the forest looking to see the trees / But none were there / He found a girl / She found the erlking"
- "By now, he seems less a cartoon character than some contemporary Erlking, the malicious spirit made famous by Goethe (and Schubert) but found originally in a Danish ballad."
Etymology
Partial calque of German Erlkönig (literally “alder-king”), a mistranslation of Danish ellerkonge (“king of the elves”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ellerkonge