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Harold.

A male given name from Old English or Old Norse.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/ˈhæɹəld/Received-Pronunciation/ˈhæɹəld/General-American/ˈhɛɹəld//ˈhaɾəld/Scotland, Wales
  1. A male given name from Old English or Old Norse.

Where this word comes from

From a merger of Old English Hereweald and Old English Harold (itself from Old Norse Haraldr), both from Proto-Germanic *Harjawaldaz, from *harjaz (“army”) + *waldaz (“ruler, authority”). Related to Walter, which has the elements reversed. Cognate with Danish, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish Harald, Faroese and Icelandic Haraldur.

name/ˈhæɹəld/Received-Pronunciation/ˈhæɹəld/General-American/ˈhɛɹəld//ˈhaɾəld/Scotland, Wales
  1. A particular format of improvised theatre, in which characters and themes are introduced and then recur in a series of connected scenes.

Where this word comes from

First performed by The Committee, a San Francisco improv group, in 1967. The name is said to have been jokingly suggested by one of the audience.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.