draugr

See also: Draugr

English

Alternative forms

• draug

Noun

draugr (plural draugrs or draugar)

1. (Norse mythology) An undead creature from Norse mythology, an animated corpse that inhabits its grave, often guarding buried treasure.

Translations

an undead creature from Norse mythology

• Esperanto: draŭgro
• Marathi: ड्रॉग्र m (ḍrŏgra)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: draug

• Old Norse: draugr
• Portuguese: draugr m

Old Norse

FWOTD – 17 August 2015

Pronunciation

• (12th century Icelandic) IPA^(key): /ˈdrɑuɣr̩/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Norse *ᛞᚨᚱᚨᚢᚷᚨᛉ (*dᵃraugaʀ, “revenant, ghost, phantom; deceiver”), from Proto-Germanic *draugaz (“delusion, mirage, illusion”). Akin to Old Saxon gidrog (“delusion”) and Old High German bitrog (“delusion”), gitrog (“ghost”). See also Finnish raukka.

Noun

draugr m (genitive draugs, plural draugar)

2. (folklore) ghost, spirit, undead
   • Þáttr Þorsteins skelks, in 1827, S. Egilsson, Þ. Guðmundsson, Fornmanna sögur, Volume III. Copenhagen, page 200:

     Hann kyndir ofn brennanda, sagði draugrinn.

     "He kindles furnace's fire", said the ghost.

3. (Old East Norse) based on descendants + cognates: deceiver; nomen agentis to an attested cognate to Old Saxon bidriogan, Old High German triogan (“to mislead, deceive”)

Declension

Declension of draugr (strong a-stem)

masculine	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	draugr	draugrinn	draugar	draugarnir
accusative	draug	drauginn	drauga	draugana
dative	draugi	drauginum	draugum	draugunum
genitive	draugs	draugsins	drauga	drauganna

Descendants

• Faroese: dreygur
• Icelandic: draugur
• Norn: (unattested) drog
  • Scots: drow, trow (effected by troll (troll))
    • English: drow
• Norwegian: draug, drøg, drog, drauv, drøv, drov
• Old Danish: drog
• Old Swedish: *drøgher
  • Swedish: drög, dröger (dialectal, archaic)
• Swedish: (regional surviving ON-form, obsolete) draugr m
• → Danish: drauge, dravge (learned)
• → English: draugr, draug (learned)
  • → English: Draugr
• → Swedish: draug (learned)

Etymology 2

Possibly a nominalisation of Proto-Germanic *draugiz (though one would expect the vowel to display umlaut) or related to drjúgr.

Noun

draugr m

2. (poetic) dry wood; tree trunk
3. (poetic) (from the sense of tree-trunk) man, warrior

Descendants

• Icelandic: draugur

Further reading

• Richard Cleasby; Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1874), “draugr”, in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, page 102
• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), “draugr”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 92; also available at the Internet Archive
• drög in Rietz, J. E. Svenskt dialektlexikon