Lerwick

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in Scotland that serves as the main harbour and administrative centre of the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic
2. The principal settlement and port of the Shetland Islands, located on the island of Mainland off the coast of northern Scotland
3. A harbour town in the far north of Scotland that acts as the chief community and seat of local government for Shetland

Etymology: Lerwick is the main town of the Shetland Islands, and its name is a record of the Norse settlers who arrived there. It comes from Old Norse "Leirvík", built from "leir", meaning "clay", and "vík", meaning "bay". The name passed into Norn, the Norse-derived language once spoken in Shetland, as "Larvik", and English later settled on the spelling and pronunciation that appear today. The sense of the name is plain: a clay bay, a small inlet whose shore or seabed was rich in clay. The "vík" element is common across the Norse world, appearing in place names such as Reykjavík, where "vík" likewise means bay or inlet. Shetland's place names are dense with Norse elements, and Lerwick is one of the clearest examples of a settlement named for its immediate landscape.