berserker
ber·serk·er/ˈbɜːsɜːkə/noun
berserker is spelled B-E-R-S-E-R-K-E-R, 3 syllables: ber·serk·er. The wrong spelling people search most is beserker: about 280 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Berserker is a noun meaning “A Norse warrior who purportedly fought in a trance-like frenzy; a berserk”. The plural of berserker is berserkers.
How many letters and syllables are in berserker?
| Letters | 9: B-E-R-S-E-R-K-E-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ber·serk·er |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words; the 58,714th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, beserker, about 280 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell berserker?
Berserker is spelled B-E-R-S-E-R-K-E-R. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for berserker in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is berserker?
Berserker appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce berserker?
- UK /ˈbɜːsɜːkə/
- UK /bəˈzɜːkə/
- UK /bɜː-/
Berserker has 3 syllables, split ber·serk·er in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-berserker.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of berserker
- berserkers plural
- berserkar
- berserkir
- berzerker
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does berserker mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A Norse warrior who purportedly fought in a trance-like frenzy; a berserk.
- 2
One who fights as if frenzied, like a berserker.
- 3
A type of von Neumann probe whose mission is to exterminate alien lifeforms.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Berserker in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Norse warrior who fought in a frenzy:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does berserker come from?
Borrowed from Old Norse berserkr (“Norse warrior who fights with frenzy”), probably from bjǫrn (“bear”) + serkr (“coat; shirt”), referring to the bearskins worn by the warriors. Bjǫrn is possibly ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”); and serkr from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; thread”). Alternatively, it has been suggested that the first element of the word is from berr (“bare, naked”), suggesting warriors who went into battle without armour, but this is now thought unlikely. Doublet of berserk.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).