paladin means A heroic champion, especially a knight. It carries an Arena rating of 1528, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, paladin ranks #249 of 42,749 for Qualifying, #1,896 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,899 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,201 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
paladin is pronounced /ˈpælədɪn/.
Why “paladin” is a great word
A heroic champion or knight, especially one of the legendary twelve peers of Charlemagne's court. From French paladin, from Italian paladino, from Late Latin palātīnus ("palace officer"), from palātium ("palace"). Unlike "knight," a general term for a mounted soldier bound by earthly codes, or "champion," a broad defender of any cause, a paladin is crystallized from the golden haze of legend, an archetype of celestial virtue. It is the gleam of Roland's sword Durendal catching the Pyrenean sun, the unshakable vow spoken before a crumbling altar, the twelve names recited like an incantation—the knight not merely sworn to a lord but consecrated to an idea, riding out past the boundaries of the known world where the maps simply read hic sunt dracones.
Etymology
Borrowed from French paladin, from Italian paladino, from Late Latin palātīnus (“palace officer”), derived from palātium (“palace”). Doublet of palatine.
noun
- A heroic champion, especially a knight.e.g.“For example, my own entry into the world of theorycrafting happened when I took somebody’s prot paladin spreadsheet and translated it into MATLAB code.” — 2014 July 15, Theck, “TC101: Intro to Theorycrafting”, in Sacred Duty, archived from the original on 25 Dec 2025:
- A defender or advocate of a noble cause.
- Any of the twelve Companions of the court of Emperor Charlemagne.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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