Vī'king or VĪ'KINGS or VĪ'KING§, n.

n.; pl. VĪ'KINGS, or VĪ'KING§. One of the pirate chiefs from among the Northmen, who plundered the coasts of Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Grim vikings, and their rapture In the sea-fight and the capture, And the life of slavery. Longfellow.

Viking differs in meaning from sea-king, with which it is frequently confounded. “The sea-king was a man connected with a royal race, either of the small kings of the country, or of the Haarfager family, and who, by right, received the title of king as soon as he took the command of men, although only of a single ship’s crew, and without having any land or kingdom. Vikings were merely pirates, alternately peasants and pirates, deriving the name of viking from the ricks, vicks, or inlets on the coast in which they harbored with their long ships or rowing-galleys.” S. Laing.