jotun

See also: Jotun, jötun, Jötun, jøtun, and jǫtun

English

WOTD – 17 May 2017

Etymology

The jötnar Fafnir and Fasolt seize Freyja in an illustration by Arthur Rackham in The Rhinegold & the Valkyrie (1910), a retelling of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)

Learned borrowing from Old Norse jǫtunn, from Proto-Germanic *etunaz (“giant”). Doublet of ettin.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈjəʊtʊn/, /ˈjoʊtʊn/, /ˈjoʊtən/, /ˈjɔːtʊn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: jo‧tun

Noun

jotun (plural jotuns or jötnar)

1. (Norse mythology) A member of a race of giants who usually stand in opposition to the Æsir and especially to Thor.
   • 1831, Walter Savage Landor, “Gunlaug”, in Gebir, Count Julian, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street, →OCLC, page 279:

     Some with disdain his reasons heard, / While others wisht the cause deferr'd. / Then Ormur spake, in speech of scorn, / Ormur, the friend of Asbiorn, / Who, daring singly to engage, / A jotun, proved his fatal rage.

   • 1908, The Elementary School Teacher, volume 8, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →OCLC, page 214:

     When Christianity became the religion of the people the trolls gradually assumed something of the role formerly played by the more powerful Jotuns.

   • 1967, Ingri D'Aulaire; Edgar Parin D'aulaire, “Loki, the God of the Jotun Race”, in Norse Gods and Giants, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ISBN 978-0-385-04908-5; republished as D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, New York, N.Y.: New York Review of Books, 2005, ISBN 978-1-59017-125-7, page 42:

     When Odin was still young – before he had hanged himself on Yggdrasil and drunk from the Well of Wisdom – his eyes had fallen on a jotun named Loki.

   • 2001, John Lindow, “The Historical Background”, in Handbook of Norse Mythology (Handbooks of World Mythology), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 2:

     The world in which the æsir and jötnar play out their struggle has its own set of place-names but is essentially recognizable as Scandinavia. There are rivers, mountains, forests, oceans, storms, cold weather, fierce winters, eagles, ravens, salmon, and snakes.

Alternative forms

• Jotun
• jötun, Jötun
• jotunn, Jotunn
• jötunn, Jötunn

Related terms

• Jötunheimr

Translations

member of a race of giants

• Danish: jætte (da) c
• Faroese: jøtun m
• Finnish: jotuni (fi)
• German: Jötunn m
• Icelandic: jötunn (is) m
• Old Norse: jǫtunn m
• Russian: ётун m (jótun)
• Swedish: jätte (sv) c

Further reading

• Jötunn on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Tounj, junto

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• jøtun

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Old Norse jǫtunn, from Proto-Germanic *etunaz. Doublet of jøtul and jutul.

Noun

jotun m (definite singular jotunen, indefinite plural jotnar, definite plural jotnane)

1. (Norse mythology) jotun

References

• “jotun” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.