Advertisement
 ⇄Change Direction
 Translation for 'kenning' from English to Icelandic
NOUN   a kenning | kennings
VERB   to ken | kenned / kent | kenned / kent
kennin / kenning | kens
bókm.
kenning {kv} [í skáldskap]
kenning [a special type of metaphor in Old Norse poetry]
1 translation
To translate another word just start typing!

 ⇄ 
Translation for 'kenning' from English to Icelandic

kenning [a special type of metaphor in Old Norse poetry]
kenning {kv} [í skáldskap]bókm.
Advertisement
  • kenning {kv} = theory
  • kenning {kv} = teaching
  • kenning {kv} = doctrine
Show all
Usage Examples English
  • Although the word "kenning" is not often used for non-Germanic languages, a similar form can be found in Biblical poetry in its use of parallelism.
  • In chapter 12 of the "Prose Edda" book "Skáldskaparmál", Hel is mentioned in a kenning for Baldr ("Hel's companion").
  • In "Þórsdrápa" his name appears in the kenning "á Endils mó" which means "onto Endil's moor" and refers to the sea.
  • The "tasters of blood" (a kenning) in this passage are thought to be ravens, which feasted on the slain.
  • A similar kenning for whale, "Víðblindi's pig" (...), can be found in an anonymous stanza from the 13th century preserved in "Laufás-Edda".

  • His unlimited class vehicle got the kenning "Kókómjólkurbíllinn" and is still an icon of Formula Offroad today.
  • In "Alvíssmál", a kenning for the sun is listed as the "deceiver of Dvalinn", referring to the sun's power of turning dwarfs into stone.
  • This is why skaldic poetry used the "sorrow of Jonakr's sons" as a kenning for stones.
  • For example, Billing is listed as a dwarf name in the "Hauksbók" manuscript version of "Völuspá" and is found in a kenning for poetry: "cup of the son of Billing."
  • East Dane is an Anglo-Saxon ethnonym which was used in the epic "Beowulf" as a kenning for the Geats, the people of Götaland without Scania in southern Sweden.

  • There are also specific types of epithets, such as the "kenning" which appears in works such as "Beowulf". An example of a kenning would be using the term "whale-road" instead of the word "sea".
  • The Anglo-Saxon word for peace-weaver is "freothuwebbe" ("fríÞwebbe"). It is a kenning, a literary device common in Anglo-Saxon poetry.
  • Kennings are a key feature of Old English poetry. A kenning is an often formulaic metaphorical phrase that describes one thing in terms of another: for instance, in "Beowulf", the sea is called the "whale road".
  • Álfröðull also occurs as a kenning for the sun in skaldic verse; the simplex, "röðull", is used with the same meaning, and Alaric Hall therefore suggests in his book on the elves that the choice of "álfröðull" depended on alliteration, but that the existence of the kenning suggests that the concepts of the sun and the elves were "semantically congruent"; he considers the "álfr" (elf) in "álfröðull" possibly a heiti for Freyr.
  • Snorri also gives "Skilfing" as a kenning for "king" and it appears as a kenning for "sword" in the [...] found in some versions of the [...].

    Advertisement
    © dict.cc Icelandic-English dictionary 2024
    Contains translations by TU Chemnitz and Mr Honey's Business Dictionary (German-English only).
    Links to this dictionary or to individual translations are very welcome!