Ettin
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A giant. archaic, dialectal
"1890, Joseph Jacobs, "The Red Ettin" in English Folk and Fairy Tales, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 3rd edition, no date, p. 138, https://archive.org/details/englishfairytale00jacouoft He asked the wife if he might stay for the night, as he was tired with a long journey; and the wife said he might, but it was not a good place for him to be in, as it belonged to the Red Ettin, who was a very terrible beast, with three heads, that spared no living man it could get hold of."
- 2 A giant with two heads.
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More examples"1890, Joseph Jacobs, "The Red Ettin" in English Folk and Fairy Tales, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 3rd edition, no date, p. 138, https://archive.org/details/englishfairytale00jacouoft He asked the wife if he might stay for the night, as he was tired with a long journey; and the wife said he might, but it was not a good place for him to be in, as it belonged to the Red Ettin, who was a very terrible beast, with three heads, that spared no living man it could get hold of."
Etymology
From Middle English eten, etend, from Old English eoten (“giant, monster, enemy”), from Proto-West Germanic *etun, from Proto-Germanic *etunaz (“giant, glutton”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”). Cognate with Icelandic jötunn (“giant”), Swedish jätte (“giant”), Danish jætte (“giant”). Doublet of jotun.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.