Vi"king (?), n. [Icel. vikingr, fr. vik a bay, inlet.]
One belonging to the pirate crews from among the Northmen, who plundered the coasts of Europe in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries.
Of grim Vikings, and the rapture
Of the sea fight, and the capture,
And the life of slavery.
Longfellow.
Vikings differs in meaning from sea king, with which 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 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 vicks, wicks, or inlets, on the coast in which they harbored with their long ships or rowing galleys."
Laing.
© Webster 1913.