Varangian

Ultimately from Byzantine Greek Βάραγγος (Bárangos), from Old Norse væringi, from várr (“pledge”) or værr (“pledge”), which is cognate with Old English wǣr (“fidelity, loyalty”), + Old Norse gangi (“companion”).

• IPA^(key): /vəˈɹæn.d͡ʒi.ən/
• Hyphenation: Va‧ran‧gi‧an

Varangian (plural Varangians)

1. (historical) A member of the ethnically Scandinavian people around the borders of Constantinople in the ninth and tenth centuries.
2. (historical) A member of the imperial body guard at Constantinople from 955.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 506:

     The Byzantines continued to recruit elite warriors from the north, not merely from Rus’ but directly from far-off Scandinavia; from the end of the tenth century, they referred to them as ‘Varangians’.

• Varyag

Varangian (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to the Varangians.
2. Of or pertaining to the Varanger Peninsula in Norway.
3. (geology) Pertaining to a period of intense glaciation during the late Proterozoic eon.

• Varangian in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.