Definition of "Varangian"

Varangian

/vəˈɹæn.d͡ʒi.ən/

noun
plural Varangians
1. (historical) A member of the ethnically Scandinavian people around the borders of Constantinople in the ninth and tenth centuries.
2. (historical) A member of the imperial body guard at Constantinople from 955.
  Quotations
  The Byzantines continued to recruit elite warriors from the north, not merely from Rus’ but directly from far-off Scandinavia; from the end of the tenth century, they referred to them as ‘Varangians’.
  2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 506
adjective
not comparable
1. Of or pertaining to the Varangians.
2. Of or pertaining to the Varanger Peninsula in Norway.
3. (geology) Pertaining to a period of intense glaciation during the late Proterozoic eon.