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Kraken.

A colossal sea monster that attacks ships and sailors, often portrayed as a giant octopus or squid.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/ˈkɹæ.kən/UK, US/ˈkɹɑː.kən/UK, US/ˈkɹeɪ.kən/UK, US/-kɪn/UK, US
  1. A colossal sea monster that attacks ships and sailors, often portrayed as a giant octopus or squid.

    Norse
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Norwegian kraken (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), definite singular of krake (“crooked dead tree, wooden drag/grapnel”) (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), both from Old Norse kraki (“crooked dead tree, wooden drag/grapnel”, literally “crookie: something with crooks/hooks”), from Proto-Germanic *krankaz (“crooked”).

noun/ˈkɹæ.kən/UK, US/ˈkɹɑː.kən/UK, US/ˈkɹeɪ.kən/UK, US/-kɪn/UK, US
  1. Short for Kraken variant (“SARS-CoV-2 virus variant XBB.1.5”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Norwegian kraken (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), definite singular of krake (“crooked dead tree, wooden drag/grapnel”) (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), both from Old Norse kraki (“crooked dead tree, wooden drag/grapnel”, literally “crookie: something with crooks/hooks”), from Proto-Germanic *krankaz (“crooked”).

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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.