Definition of "wergeld" [wergeld]

• In Anglo-Saxon and Germanic law, a price set upon a person's life on the basis of rank and paid as compensation by the family of a slayer to the kindred or lord of a slain person to free the culprit of further punishment or obligation and to prevent a blood feud. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The wergeld was an unsafe subject for a joke, as Gregory of Tours has shown with startling finality 8."
• "Bear in mind, I'm responding to this as a lowly Bachelor of Arts (essentially, I have a very small wergeld in the academic community) -- but I found the diagram to be quite helpful."
• "Incensed at the shameful slaughter of his son, Harald Harfagr came over from Norway about the year 900 to avenge him, but, as was then not unusual, accepted as a wergeld or atonement for his son's death a fine of sixty marks of gold, which it fell to the islanders to pay."