valr

From Proto-Germanic *walaz (“corpse, body, battlefield”). Cognate with Old English wæl, Old Saxon wal, Old High German wal. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *welh₃- (“wound, injure”).

• (12th century Icelandic) IPA^(key): /ˈwɑlr̩/

valr m (genitive vals)

1. (uncountable, in the singular) the dead, slain in battle
   • Sögubrot af Fornkonungum 8, in 1829, C. C. Rafn, Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, Volume I. Copenhagen, page 380:

     ok allan þann val, sem fellr á þeima velli, gef ek Óðni.

     and all those slain, who shall fall at that field, I shall give unto Odin.

• Icelandic: valur m
• Norwegian: val m
• Swedish: val c

Probably a contracted form of *valhaukr (“carrion-hawk”), from valr (“the slain”) + haukr (“hawk”).

valr m (genitive vals, plural valir)

1. falcon, hawk
   • Grágás, in 1829, J. F. W. Schlegel, Hin forna lögbok islendinga sem nefnist Gragas, Volume II. Copenhagen, page 346:

     Vali scal eigi veiþa oc alptir oc gæs oc andir;

     Falcons shall not be hunted, nor swans nor geese nor ducks;

   • Staraya Ladoga, in 840:

     s Œfi of variðr hali valr Hríms fránmanna grand fimbulsinni plóga.

• Icelandic: valur m

• “valr”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• valr in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, R. Cleasby and G. Vigfússon, Clarendon Press, 1874, at Internet Archive.
• valr in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, G. T. Zoëga, Clarendon Press, 1910, at Internet Archive.