haugr

Old Norse

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *haugaz. Related to hár (“high”), Danish høj (“high”), Swedish hög (“hill”), North English how, from Proto-Germanic *hauhaz.

Noun

haugr m (genitive haugs, plural haugar)

1. howe, mound; dung heap, midden
2. cairn; sacrificial mound

Declension

Declension of haugr (strong a-stem)

masculine	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	haugr	haugrinn	haugar	haugarnir
accusative	haug	hauginn	hauga	haugana
dative	haugi	hauginum	haugum	haugunum
genitive	haugs	haugsins	hauga	hauganna

Descendants

• Icelandic: haugur
• Faroese: heyggjur, heygur
• Norwegian Nynorsk: haug
• Norwegian Bokmål: haug
• Old Swedish: høgher
  • Swedish: hög
• Danish: høj
• → Middle English: hoge
• → Old French: hoge, hogue

Further reading

• Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1874) “haugr”, in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press
• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “haugr”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at the Internet Archive