Yggdrasill

English

Proper noun

Yggdrasill

  1. Alternative spelling of Yggdrasil.

Old Norse

Etymology

Yggr (“the terrifying one; Odin”) +‎ drasill (“steed”), where “steed” is a poetic expression for gallows, referring to the story of Odin hanging himself on the tree for nine nights.

Proper noun

Yggdrasill m

  1. an unclear word, only occurring in the genitive in a fixed expression

Usage notes

  • Unlike in most languages that have borrowed this word, in Old Norse the “world tree” itself is only referred to by the expression askr Yggdrasils (“the ash tree of Yggdrasill”).

Derived terms

  • askr Yggdrasils (“the ash of Yggdrasill; the world tree”)

Descendants

  • → Icelandic: Yggdrasill
  • → Faroese: Yggdrasil
  • → Norwegian Nynorsk: Yggdrasil, Yggdrasel
  • → Swedish: Yggdrasil
  • → Danish: Yggdrasil

Further reading

  • Winterbourne, Anthony (2004): When the Norns Have Spoken: Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.