viking

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viking XIX (first in Icel. form vikingr or vars. of this, vikinger, -ir). — ON. (Icel.) víkingr, commonly held to be f. vík creek, inlet + -ingr -ING3, as if ‘frequenter of inlets of the sea’; but the existence of the word in OE. as early as VIII (in wīcingsċeaða) and in OFris. (wī(t)sing) suggests that it may have originated in that linguistic area (f. OE. wīc, OFris. wīk, in the sense ‘camp’).

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