pendragon

Meaning

Noun

• Also capitalized as Pendragon: : chief war leader, chieftain, dictator, despot or king.

Origin

• From Middle English Pendragon, borrowed from Welsh pendragon ("chief war leader"), from pen (ultimately from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom ("head")) + dragon (from Latin dracō ("serpent, snake; dragon"), from Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων ("serpent; dragon"), possibly from δέρκομαι, from Proto-Indo-European *derḱ- ("to see")). Compare Late Latin īnsulāris dracō, used by the monk Saint Gildas ( – c. 570 AD) in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) as an epithet of Maelgwn Gwynedd (died c. 547), the king of Gwynedd.