"polotaswarf" meaning in English

See polotaswarf in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: From Old Norse, palace-looting. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} polotaswarf (uncountable)
  1. The right of the Viking Varangian guard, upon the death of the Byzantine emperor, to remove from the royal palace as much treasure as they could carry in their hands. Tags: uncountable Synonyms: polutasvarf
    Sense id: en-polotaswarf-en-noun-Xy4koHtq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "etymology_text": "From Old Norse, palace-looting.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "polotaswarf (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1230, Snorri Sturlason, chapter 16, in Heimskringla: The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway:",
          "text": "Harald [Hardraade] had been three times in the poluta-svarf while he was in Constantinople. It is the custom, namely, there, that every time one of the Greek emperors dies, the Varings are allowed poluta-svarf; that is, they may go through all the emperor's palaces where his treasures are and each may take and keep what he can lay hold of while he is going through them.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 42:",
          "text": "I shall go down to Constantinople to the Varangers, get my Polotaswarf out of the Kaiser’s treasure, and pay thee back five to one.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, Colingwood, W. G., “King William the Wanderer”, in Saga-book, volume 4, pages 171-181:",
          "text": "In the eleventh century, and among people who knew the Viking Age at first hand, this custom of Polotasvarf would be familiar. Modern English readers have the word from Kingsley's Hereward,\" where it is used as equivalent to loot, or booty; but it was properly the \"palace-scouring\" of the Warengs, who had the right of pillaging when the Greek Emperor died; an Oriental custom, I imagine, brought north from Byzantium.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The right of the Viking Varangian guard, upon the death of the Byzantine emperor, to remove from the royal palace as much treasure as they could carry in their hands."
      ],
      "id": "en-polotaswarf-en-noun-Xy4koHtq",
      "links": [
        [
          "Varangian",
          "Varangian"
        ],
        [
          "Byzantine",
          "Byzantine"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "polutasvarf"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "polotaswarf"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From Old Norse, palace-looting.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "polotaswarf (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1230, Snorri Sturlason, chapter 16, in Heimskringla: The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway:",
          "text": "Harald [Hardraade] had been three times in the poluta-svarf while he was in Constantinople. It is the custom, namely, there, that every time one of the Greek emperors dies, the Varings are allowed poluta-svarf; that is, they may go through all the emperor's palaces where his treasures are and each may take and keep what he can lay hold of while he is going through them.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 42:",
          "text": "I shall go down to Constantinople to the Varangers, get my Polotaswarf out of the Kaiser’s treasure, and pay thee back five to one.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, Colingwood, W. G., “King William the Wanderer”, in Saga-book, volume 4, pages 171-181:",
          "text": "In the eleventh century, and among people who knew the Viking Age at first hand, this custom of Polotasvarf would be familiar. Modern English readers have the word from Kingsley's Hereward,\" where it is used as equivalent to loot, or booty; but it was properly the \"palace-scouring\" of the Warengs, who had the right of pillaging when the Greek Emperor died; an Oriental custom, I imagine, brought north from Byzantium.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The right of the Viking Varangian guard, upon the death of the Byzantine emperor, to remove from the royal palace as much treasure as they could carry in their hands."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Varangian",
          "Varangian"
        ],
        [
          "Byzantine",
          "Byzantine"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "polutasvarf"
    }
  ],
  "word": "polotaswarf"
}

Download raw JSONL data for polotaswarf meaning in English (2.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.