Figure of Speech
Kenning
From Old Norse kenna: to know or perceive. A defining feature of skaldic and eddic verse; Beowulf contains hundreds. Seamus Heaney revived kenning-like compounds in his 2000 translation.
Definition
A compound poetic epithet used in Old English and Norse poetry as a circumlocution for a common noun.
Example
'Whale-road' (sea); 'ring-giver' (king); 'word-hoard' (vocabulary); 'battle-dew' (blood).