merlin means A wizard in the Arthurian legend. It carries an Arena rating of 1526, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, merlin ranks #318 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #791 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #2,121 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,277 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
merlin is pronounced /ˈmɝlɪn/.
Why “merlin” is a great word
A wizard of Arthurian legend and a small, fierce falcon (Falco columbarius) of northern latitudes. The name descends from Middle English Merlyn, from Medieval Latin Merlinus and Old French Merlin, from Proto-Brythonic *Mor-ðin (literally 'sea-hill'), from Proto-Celtic *mori ('sea') + *dūnom ('stronghold, rampart'); the bird's name, first attested in the 14th century, is from Middle English merlioun, of uncertain origin. Unlike 'wizard,' a generic term stripped of Arthurian gravitas, or 'falcon,' which calls to mind larger, more celebrated raptors like the peregrine, merlin compacts both meanings into a singular force: the sage trapped in a hawthorn thicket by his own enchantment, and the fierce little hunter that stoops after larks above the tundra. It is the cold shimmer of a northern sky, the sudden shadow over a heath, and the disquieting sense that power does not require scale to be absolute.
Etymology
From Middle English Merlyn, from Medieval Latin Merlinus and Old French Merlin, from Proto-Brythonic *Mor-ðin (literally “sea-hill”), from Proto-Celtic *mori (“sea”) + *dūnom (“stronghold, rampart”).
name
- A wizard in the Arthurian legend.
- A male given name.
- A census-designated place in Josephine County, Oregon, United States.
noun
- A small falcon, Falco columbarius, that breeds in northern North America, Europe, and Asia.e.g.“The gentle falcon, that with its feet distraineth / The kingës hand; the hardy sperhawke eke, / The quailës foe; the merlion that paineth / Himself full oft the larkë for to seek; [...]” — [c. 1381–1382, Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules; republished as “The Assembly of Fowls”, in D[avid] Laing Purves, editor, The Canterbury Tales and Faerie Queene: With Other Poems of Chaucer and S
- A cytoskeletal protein active in the suppression of tumors.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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