angakok means an Inuit shaman. It carries an Arena rating of 1326, earned across 67 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, angakok ranks #2,187 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #2,514 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #3,463 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #3,679 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
Why “angakok” is a great word
ANGAKOK — [Noun] A traditional Inuit spiritual healer and mediator who navigates the spirit world to maintain balance within the community. From Greenlandic Inuit *angakkoq* (shaman), borrowed into Danish and subsequently into English. Unlike a "medicine man," a vague, anthropological catch-all that bleaches specificity from diverse traditions, or a "priest," a figure of institutional hierarchy and codified doctrine, the angakok's authority is born of lonely, terrifying vision-quests on the ice—a power wrested from the unseen, not conferred by an institution. He is the figure chanting in the smoky gloom of a sealskin tent, descending in trance to placate the sea-goddess Sedna, and interpreting the subtle crimes of taboo that anger the weather. His practice is the stark acknowledgment that the boundaries between this world and the other are as thin as an oiled gut-skin window, and just as fragile.
Etymology
From Greenlandic angakkoq.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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