Orkney
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Ellipsis of Orkney Islands. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
"Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands lying off the northeast tip of Scotland. “Everywhere in Orkney there is the sense of age, the dark backward and abysm,” the late Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown wrote. “The islands have been inhabited for a very long time, from before the day of the plough.”"
- 2 A historical county of Scotland, United Kingdom.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands lying off the northeast tip of Scotland. “Everywhere in Orkney there is the sense of age, the dark backward and abysm,” the late Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown wrote. “The islands have been inhabited for a very long time, from before the day of the plough.”"
Etymology
From Old Norse Orkneyjar (“seal islands”), from Old Norse ørkn (“seal”) + ey (“island”). The modern form is singular. Ninth-century Norwegian settlers reinterpreted the Pictish/Proto-Brythonic name for the islands, recorded as Ancient Greek Όρκάδες (Órkádes), which was derived from Proto-Celtic *ɸorkos (“young pig”).
Related phrases
More for "orkney"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.