Vortigern

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A semi-legendary ruler of the Britons in the fifth century, traditionally blamed for inviting the Saxons into Britain
2. A figure of early British legend, a fifth-century king said to have invited Saxon warriors to help defend his realm
3. The name of a half-mythical fifth-century British monarch whose reign is recorded in chronicles such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's history

Etymology: Vortigern was, according to medieval chronicles, a fifth-century British king, and the name became so linked to the legend that it was eventually taken as a common word. Its surface meaning is simple: the Proto-Celtic elements combined to give something like "over-lord" or "great lord," a title that sounds more like a rank than a personal name. The name passed into Late Latin as "Vortigernus," and from there into English, where it survives mainly as the name of the shadowy ruler who, in the chronicles, invited Saxon mercenaries to Britain. The name's Brythonic form, reconstructed as "Gworθɨɣern," shows the sound changes that separated the Welsh and Breton branches of Celtic from their Gaulish and Irish cousins. The Latinised form preserves the old pronunciation more faithfully than later English spellings do.