skraeling
/ˈskɹeɪlɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A member of a race of native people encountered by early Norse settlers to Greenland, often equated with Inuit or American Indians.
name
A little-known language once spoken by the now extinct Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland (also called Beothuk or Red Indian).
noun
Alternative form of Skraeling.
Example Sentences
- "Discrepancies between the Haúksbók and the 557 Mss. exist also in the narrative of the encounter of Karlsefni's men with the Skraelings, and always in the sense that the Haúksbók uses expressions magnifying the events, which seems suspicious."
- "1974, H. F. McGee, Native Peoples of Atlantic Canada, Carleton University Press, page 2, This time all the staves were being swung anti-sunwise, and the Skraelings were all yelling aloud, so they took red shields and held them out against them."
- "2005, Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Vikings, Constable & Robinson (Robinson), unnumbered page, The Skraelings were soon back in greater numbers, and openly hostile. The Vikings killed many of them in the ensuing battle, and witnessed a Skraeling chief hurling a captured Viking axe into the lake – purportedly in fear of its magical properties."
- "2014 [1911, William Heinemann], Arthur G. Chater (translator), Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists, [1911, Nansen, Nord i Tåkeheimen], Cambridge University Press, page 80, A valuable piece of evidence of the Norsemen having early had intercourse with the Skrælings in Greenland is a little carved walrus, of walrus-ivory, which was found during excavations on the site of a house in Bergen, and which appears to be of Eskimo workmanship."
- "Bishop Eirik Upse had gone to Vineland in 1121, perhaps to a colony of Christian settlers from Greenland or to convert skraelings in America (cf. allusion to the newly converted in the letter)."
- ""When they met the Native Americans—" "We called them the skraelings," Halfborn said. "Vicious fighters. I liked them." "—the natives had all sorts of stories about how strong the spirit world was in that area.""
Etymology
After Old Norse skrælingi (of disputed etymology), the Norse name for the native inhabitants of Greenland and continental North America (Eastern Canada).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: skrælingi