Dictionary of the Old Norwegian Language

Online version of the `"Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog`" dictionary by Johan Fritzner, originally published in the late 1800s

The dictionary contains over 40 000 translations from Old Norwegian/Norse to Norwegian. This is the largest dictionary of the language.

What is Old Norwegian?

Old Norwegian was a language spoken in Norway in the 11th and 14th century. It is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian, coming at the end of the Viking Age.

It is closely related to Old Icelandic, a sister language in Old West Norse branch.

Old Norwegian is known as gammelnorsk in modern Norwegian.

A sample of Old Norwegian:

Magnus með guðs miskun noregs konungr son Hakonar konungs sonar son Suerris konungs sender ollum gudes vínum ok sínum j frosto þings logum.Qveðju Guðs ok sina Þer vitið at hínír skynsamozsto menn af frosto þings logum hafa iðurlega getet firir oss at þer hafet spurt at ver hofum lut i at t bøta nokot um flæstar logbøkr.

- Excerpt from Landslova, written between 1300 and 1320.

Written language of the dictionary

The dictionary volumes were published between 1862 and 1896. This predates current written standards of Norwegian, namely Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Therefore, the written definitions may seem old fashioned or more dano-norwegian than one would expect. The writing system used is probably Riksmål.