gift hall

English

Etymology

Calque of Old English gif-heall, from gif (“gift”) + heall (“hall”).

Noun

gift hall (plural gift halls)

  1. A large communal building used in early Germanic and Norse societies as a place where valuable gifts were distributed to loyal warriors, thanes, retainers, etc.
    • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 27:
      Then morning came and many a warrior
      gathered,as I've heard, around the gift-hall,
      clan chiefs flocking from far and near[.]
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