valkyrie means any of the female attendants of Odin, figures said to guide fallen warriors from the battlefield to Valhalla. It carries an Arena rating of 1803, earned across 17 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, valkyrie ranks #394 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,250 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,052 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #3,062 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
valkyrie is pronounced /ˈvælˌkɪ.ɹi/.
Why “valkyrie” is a great word
One of the female figures in Norse mythology who determine which warriors die in combat and guide their spirits to Odin's hall. From Old Norse valkyrja, from valr ("the slain on a battlefield") + kyrja ("chooser"), literally "chooser of the slain"; first attested in English as a proper noun in the 1770s. Unlike an "angel," a celestial messenger of divine grace, or a "fury," a chthonic spirit of retribution, the valkyrie is a sovereign arbiter of fate who sanctifies the violence she oversees. She is the glint of spear-light in a dying man’s eye, the sudden stillness when a wound proves mortal, and the hand that lifts the fallen from the bloody soil—a reminder that honor, like tragedy, is often a matter of selection, and her touch, though cold as mountain wind, carries the heat of a hearth lit at the end of the world.
Etymology
Borrowed from Old Norse valkyrja sg (“chooser of the slain”), plural valkyrjur pl, from Proto-Germanic *walakuzjǭ. Cognate to Old English wælcyrġe. First attested in English as a proper noun (Valkyries) in the 1770s; attested as a common noun (valkyries) since the 1880s.
noun
- Any of the female attendants of Odin, figures said to guide fallen warriors from the battlefield to Valhalla.e.g.“Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (1853) famously features valkyries.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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