Viking word

The word Viking comes from the Old Norse word "vikingr", lit. "one who came from the fjords", from "vik", meaning a bay, creek, fjord or inlet. By the end of the Viking period, the term both referred to pirates of robbers operating by sea, known as "vikingr" in West Norse, and was used as a term for sea-born warfare and harrying in the West Norse "viking." These names were common mainly in Scandinavia itself, however, and many other terms were used in the wider world. These included heatens, northmen, the people from the north, the Danes, rus, or the "foreigners." These terms, however, were used for the Viking peoples as a whole, and thus never accounted for the variation between those that originated from different areas of Scandinavia.