Meanings
plural eotens
- A giant from Old English literature and mythology.
In these manuscripts we are again in an atmosphere of eotens and trolls, there are traces of even older terrors, when the first Teuton settlers in Europe struggled with the aborigines who lived in caves[.]
1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 31 more example
The chief exploit of the hero, Beowulf the Great, is the destruction of the two monsters Grendel and his mother; both like most of the evil beings in the old times, dwellers in the fens and the waters; and both, moreover, as some Christian bard has taken care to inform us, of "Cain's kin," as were also the eotens, and the elves, and the orcs (eótenas, and ylfe, and orcneas).
1834, “The National Fairy Mythology of England”, in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume 10, page 53
Origin
- Old Englisheoten
- Englisheoten
Learned borrowing from Old English eoten. Doublet of ettin.
More words from Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
eoten. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eoten
“eoten.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eoten. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “eoten,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eoten.
Source: eoten on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.