Standard Lemma guide

Skraeling

name · noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈskɹeɪlɪŋ/
  • rhymes with -eɪlɪŋ

1

name

Meaning 1

A little-known language once spoken by the now extinct Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland (also called Beothuk or Red Indian).

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A member of a race of native people encountered by early Norse settlers to Greenland, often equated with Inuit or American Indians.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: historical

Topics: anthropology, ethnology, human-sciences, sciences

Examples

  • 1974, H. F. McGee, Native Peoples of Atlantic Canada, Carleton University Press, page 2, This time all the staves were being swung anti-sunwise, and the Skraelings were all yelling aloud, so they took red shields and held them out against them.
  • 2005, Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Vikings, Constable & Robinson (Robinson), unnumbered page, The Skraelings were soon back in greater numbers, and openly hostile. The Vikings killed many of them in the ensuing battle, and witnessed a Skraeling chief hurling a captured Viking axe into the lake – purportedly in fear of its magical properties.
  • 2014 [1911, William Heinemann], Arthur G. Chater (translator), Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists, [1911, Nansen, Nord i Tåkeheimen], Cambridge University Press, page 80, A valuable piece of evidence of the Norsemen having early had intercourse with the Skrælings in Greenland is a little carved walrus, of walrus-ivory, which was found during excavations on the site of a house in Bergen, and which appears to be of Eskimo workmanship.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

After Old Norse skrælingi (of disputed etymology), the Norse name for the native inhabitants of Greenland and continental North America (Eastern Canada).

Across languages

Translations

2 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Danish: skrælling — member of a race
  • Swedish: skräling — member of a race