Karl
name, noun ·1 syllable ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A medieval Scandinavian freeman. historical
"Whatever its object the runrig system was not udal tenure, and therefore it appears to me to show a settlement of the unfree. Whether these were the karls or the thralls is the only problem, and I incline to think that there is little room for doubt that these were the karls. The thrall may have had a scrap of ground and kept pigs, but there is no evidence that he had agricultural land. In short the modern cottar is the descendant of the thrall and the crofter of the karl."
- 1 A male given name from the Germanic languages, equivalent to English Charles.
"“We are pleased that LSST has now been named the Vera C. Rubin Observatory,” said Rubin’s sons Allan Rubin, David Rubin, and Karl Rubin in a statement."
Example
More examples"Karl Lange's record breaking long jump took the crowd's breath away."
Etymology
From German and North Germanic (Scandinavian) Karl, from Germanic. Doublet of Charles.
Learned borrowing from Old Norse karl. Doublet of carl, ceorl, and churl.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.