Hist. Also vikingr, -er, -ir; wiking, wicking. [ad. ON. and Icel. víking-r (whence also Norw., Sw., Da. viking, G. wiking), = OE. wícing, OFris. witsing, wising. Cf. also ON. and Icel. víking fem., the practice of marauding or piracy.
The ON. word is commonly regarded as f. vík creek, inlet, bay, + -ingr -ING3, a viking thus being one who came out from, or frequented, inlets of the sea. The name, however, was evidently current in Anglo-Frisian from a date so early as to make its Scandinavian origin doubtful; wícing-sceaða is found in Anglo-Saxon glossaries dating from the 8th century, and sǽ-wícingas occurs in the early poem of Exodus, whereas evidence for víkingr in ON. and Icel. is doubtful before the latter part of the 10th cent. It is therefore possible that the word really originated in the Anglo-Frisian area, and was only at a later date accepted by the Scandinavian peoples; in that case it was probably formed from OE. wíc camp, the formation of temporary encampments being a prominent feature of viking raids.]
1. One of those Scandinavian adventurers who practised piracy at sea, and committed depredations on land, in northern and western Europe from the eighth to the eleventh century; sometimes in general use, a warlike pirate or sea-rover.
α. 1807. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. III. iii. 341. At the age of fourteen, Torfin commenced his career, as a vikingr.
c. 1827. W. Motherwell, Poet. Wks. (1847), 13.
| It is a Vikingir | |
| Who kisses thy hand. |
1838. Crichton, Scandinavia, I. 176. Hákon commanded the intrepid Vikingr to be put to death.
1864. [H. W. Wheelwright], Spring Lapl., i. 8. When the ‘Viking’ or pirate vessel spread her sails to the wind, and bore the ‘Vikinger’ or dreaded sea pirate to the opposite shores of Britain.
β. 1840. Longf., Skeleton in Armour, iii. I was a Viking old!
1848. Lytton, Harold, VI. v. A fleet of vikings from Norway ravaged the western coasts.
1877. Black, Green Past., xxviii. I am already convinced that my ancestors were vikings.
γ. 1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1877), I. iv. 165. He [Rolf] is described as having been engaged in the calling of a wiking. Ibid. (1868), II. vii. 96. The wikings harried far and wide.
1883. Vigfusson & Powell, Corpus Poet. Bor., II. 139. The warden of the land had the heads of many Wickings (pirates) cut short with keen weapons.
1904. E. Rickert, Reaper, 53. Beyond that, we were Wickings, back to the time of Odin.
2. attrib., as viking age, expedition, invader, line, ship, vessel.
1847. I. A. Blackwell, Mallet’s Northern Antiq., 86. Halfdan enriched himself by successful Viking expeditions.
1864. [see 1 α].
1866. G. Stephens, Runic Mon., I. 226. The lower compartment is a noble Wiking-ship.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1877), I. App. 665. He may have joined the Danes or have done anything else in the wiking line.
1881. Daily News, 3 Sept., 2/2. This Viking ship, with its sepulchre chamber, in which the Viking had been buried.
1883. Vigfusson & Powell, Corpus Poet. Bor., I. 259. The Northmen confederates of the Wicking invaders.
1889. Du Chaillu, Viking Age, I. iii. 26. We must come to the conclusion that the ‘Viking Age’ lasted from about the second century of our era to about the middle of the twelfth.
Hence Viikingism, Vikingship, the practices or spirit of vikings.
1880. Stubbs, Lect. Stud. Hist. (1886), 222. The conquest of Palestine was to Robert of Normandy … a sanctified experiment of *vikingism.
1899. Somerville & Ross, Irish R. M., 239. I prefer their total lack of interest in seafaring matters to the blatant Vikingism of the avernge male.
1904. J. R. Carling, The Viking’s Skull, iv. 27. His mother shook her head in mild protest, not knowing that there was a good deal of latter-day Vikingism in the enterprise that was taking these seven men ashore.
1883. G. Stephens, Bugge’s Stud. Northern Mythol. Exam., 15. *Wikingship began to be felt … as an unbearable curse.
