Nordic

How to spell nordic

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce nordic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nordic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, Finland, and Iceland, or to its peoples and culture.

Nordic in a sentence

• The design firm is known for its clean nordic furniture and pale wood finishes.

• Several nordic countries top the annual rankings for quality of life.

Where does nordic come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English through French, where nordique means 'northern', built on the noun nord, meaning 'north'. That French nord was itself borrowed from a Germanic source closely related to the Old English north, the same ancestor that gives us the everyday compass word today. English adopted nordic in the nineteenth century, first in geographical and later in cultural and racial writing, to describe the lands and peoples of northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, Finland, and Iceland. In the twentieth century it spread into the vocabulary of sport, giving us 'nordic skiing' and 'nordic walking', styles that originated in those snowy northern countries. Because the word is simply 'north' dressed in a French spelling and an -ic ending, the trap for writers is mostly the temptation to add a stray letter; the root is just nord, with no hidden vowels.

How the word is built

• nord- (from French nord: north)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to)