"Gungnir" meaning in All languages combined

See Gungnir on Wiktionary

Proper name [English]

Etymology: Learned borrowing from Old Norse Gungnir (“the swaying one”). Etymology templates: {{lbor|en|non|Gungnir||the swaying one}} Learned borrowing from Old Norse Gungnir (“the swaying one”) Head templates: {{en-proper noun}} Gungnir
  1. (Norse mythology and paganism) The spear of the Norse god Odin, which is believed to never miss its target. Tags: Norse

Proper name [Old Norse]

Etymology: By surface analysis, *gunga + -na + -ir (“the swaying one, the rocker”). Compare Mjǫllnir (“the miller → the crusher”). The root verb is attested way later as Danish gynge (older gunge), Swedish gunga (“to swing, to sway”), ablaut of ganga (“to go”) (cf. *gænga (“lane, path”)), to the same root as English going, among many more. The name means that the spear/lance rocks in balance with the horse and thus don't miss. Since the root sense is attested late, a potential alternative reading could be more direct sense of ganga (“to go”), thus maybe “charger, launcher”? (i.e. the lance/the javelin) Etymology templates: {{surf|non|*gunga|-na|-ir}} By surface analysis, *gunga + -na + -ir, {{cog|da|gynge}} Danish gynge, {{cog|sv|gunga|t=to swing, to sway}} Swedish gunga (“to swing, to sway”), {{cog|en|going}} English going, {{gloss|i.e. the lance/the javelin}} (i.e. the lance/the javelin) Head templates: {{head|non|proper noun}} Gungnir
  1. (Norse mythology and paganism) The spear/lance of the Norse god Odin, which is believed to never miss its target. Tags: Norse
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-02 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-07-06 using wiktextract (d9fa233 and 9e92f4b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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