Runish

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to runes, runic inscription, or runic language; runic.

    "Hundreds of these Golden Ornaments — Rank-decorations, Family Medals, Gift- pieces, Amulets, or whatever else they may have been — have no letters at all, either runish or otherwise."

  2. 2
    Rough, violent.
  3. 3
    Mysterious; strange.

    "Baltazar is stunned with fear as he watches the floating hand carve mysterious "runisch sauez" (runish writings) (1544-45) in the wall."

Synonyms

All synonyms
inenubilableinsolubleintriguingmysterious

Example

More examples

"Hundreds of these Golden Ornaments — Rank-decorations, Family Medals, Gift- pieces, Amulets, or whatever else they may have been — have no letters at all, either runish or otherwise."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English runish, runisch, from Old English *rūnisc, *rȳnisc, rēnisc (“mysterious, mystic”), equivalent to rune + -ish.

Etymology 2

From Middle English runisch, a variant (by confusion) of renisch. Also rennish.

More for "runish"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.