Dictionary

ring-hoard en · NOUN

Etymology

Literary calque of Old English bēah hord, from bēah (“ring”) + hord (“hoard”).

Meanings

1. A large hoard of treasure.
   • Then the vault was rifled, the ring-hoard robbed, and the wretched man had his request granted. 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 72:
   • In Western Scandinavia [...] both hacksilver and ring hoards seem to occur later, and to belong on the whole to the 10th and 11th centuries. 2007, Dagfinn Skre, Means of Exchange: Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age, Oslo: Aarhus University Press, page 207:
   • The slayer also lay, The terrible earth-drake deprived of life, Oppressed by bale: the ring-hoard longer The twisted worm, might not control. 1887, Albert H[arris] Tolman, The Style of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, page 15:

Forms