kenning
Sign in to savethumb|Detail of the Old English manuscript of the poem [[Beowulf, showing the words (), meaning .]]
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
14 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Structure
- Complex kennings
- Word order and comprehension
- Semantics
- Ellipsis
- Definitions
- Old Norse kennings in context
- Old English and other kennings
- Modern usage
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|Detail of the Old English manuscript of the poem [[Beowulf, showing the words (), meaning .]]
A kenning (Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does ().
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “kenning” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.