Wotan

Definition: Wotan

Wotan

Noun

1. Supreme Teutonic god; counterpart of Norse Odin and Anglo-Saxon Woden.

"Wotan" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "the wind".

Date "Wotan" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1915. (references)

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
Entry	Source	Expression	Field
WOTAN	English	Wavelength-agile Optical Transport and Access Network	N/A
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Wotan (dialectical and spelling variations produce Wuotan, Woden, Wodan, Wuotan, and Gwodan), known in Norse mythology as Odin, was the supreme god of the Germanic peoples.

Wotan was a nature god as were most ancient gods. Wotan was present everywhere and always in disguise. On his travels throughout the world he wore a big blue coat, which either is or represents the sky. He was present in water and all natural places were held sacred.

The Catholic church turned all Germanic nature gods into anti-gods. Papal propaganda and the zeal of monks to eradicate "heathenism" turned the Germanic god Wotan into a wild warring beast, Freya or Frigg into a witch, the Prussian god Deiw into Deiwel-Teufel, or devil. The word 'devil' in English is not derived from the Prussian god 'Deiw', however.

Despite persecutions by Catholic church, the memory of Wotan persisted in legends and customs. In 1900 the concept of Woden was still current in Mecklenburg. Almost all German Gaue (Latin, pagi) had mountains and other places named after him under such generic names as Wodenesberg, Wuodenesberg, Godesberg and Gudensberg, Wodensholt etc. For many Germans, St. Michael replaced Wotan, and many mountain chapels dedicated to St. Michael can be found.

Wotan is also known as the Allvater, meaning father of all, father of the universe (German: Welt-All (all the world)

Some German sacred formulaes ,known as "Merseburger Zaubersprueche" were written down in c 800 AD and survived. One starts as follows:

Phol ende UUodan vuorun zi holza.

du uuart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit

thu biguel en Sinthgunt, Sunna era suister;

thu biguol en Friia, Volla era suister ....

Wotan was the son of Bor(r) or Bur(r) and the father of another powerful German god , named Donar for the thunder, or in German language "Donner". Donnerstag(Donars day)or Thors day (Thursday) is named for Donar.

Wotan (Odin), Wili (Vili) and We (Ve) are often mentioned together. "Wille" is the German word for "will"(english) "Weh" is the German word (gothic wai) for "woe" (english: great sorrow, grief, misery)

Crosswords: Wotan

English words defined with "Wotan": Odin ♦ Wodan, Woden. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Wotan" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses.

German (Wodan, Woden).

Domain	Title
Books	Assault on Baghdad (Ss Wotan Series) (reference) Death's Eagle: An S.S. Wotan Adventure (reference) Fire over Serbia (S.S. Wotan, No 3) (reference) Flight from Moscow (S.S. Wotan Series, No 2) (reference) Stalag Assault (Ss Wotan) (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Eh Wotan [IMPORT] (reference) Eh! Wotan [IMPORT] (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Wotan" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Wotan" is used about 5 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (proper)	100%	5	157,705

"Wotan" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "the wind".

The following table summarizes names related to "Wotan."
Name	Gender	Language	Related Name
Woden	Male	Anglo-Saxon Mythology	Odin
Wotan	Male	Germanic Mythology	Odin
Odin	Male	Norse Mythology	N/A
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-n-o-t-w"
	-1 letter: nota, nowt, town, want, wont.
	-2 letters: ant, awn, naw, not, now, oat, own, tan, tao, taw, ton, tow, twa, two, wan, wat, won, wot.
	-3 letters: an, at, aw, na, no, on, ow, ta, to, wo.
	Words containing the letters "a-n-o-t-w"
	+1 letter: wanton.
	+2 letters: fanwort, outfawn, outgnaw, wantons, whatnot.
	+3 letters: danewort, downbeat, downcast, fanworts, hawthorn, nanowatt, outdrawn, outfawns, outgnawn, outgnaws, sandwort, takedown, teardown, townsman, townwear, untoward, wainscot, wantoned, wantoner, wantonly, whatnots.
	+4 letters: antiwoman, boatswain, daneworts, dawsonite, downbeats, downcasts, downdraft, downstage, downstate, frontward, handwrote, hawthorns, nanowatts, narrowest, northward, outfawned, outgnawed, outlawing, paintwork, pastedown, sandworts, satinwood, stonewall, stoneware, takedowns, tallowing, teardowns, townscape, wagonette, wainscots, walkathon, wantoners, wantoning, warbonnet, warrantor, waterworn, wyandotte.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.