Nicor

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A supernatural water creature from Germanic and Norse legend, often depicted as a malevolent spirit dwelling in lakes and rivers
2. In medieval Germanic folklore, a dangerous aquatic demon or spirit believed to inhabit bodies of water and harm those nearby
3. A mythological water-dwelling entity from Norse and Germanic traditions, typically portrayed as a hostile supernatural being

Etymology: Old English "nicor" named a water monster, a creature of lakes and seas that appears in the poem "Beowulf" as one of the dangers haunting the mere where Grendel's kin lived. The word was never a common part of everyday speech in Old English, and after the language changed, it dropped out of use entirely. Centuries later, English writers revived it as a learned borrowing, taking the old word back out of the manuscripts rather than inheriting it through ordinary speech. That gap of many centuries is why the word feels so unusual today: it survived only in the written record until scholars and poets chose to reach for it again.