odal

noun

1. (countable, historical, uncountable)Among the early and medieval Teutonic peoples, especially Scandinavians, the heritable land held by the various odalmen constituting a family or kindred of freeborn tribesmen.

   “At the time of the laws owners of odal had, it appears, certain powers of selling their odal, but even then it was not an uncontrolled right of a man to do what he would with his own.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The ownership and claim of such land.

   “Generations of ancestors may have given an extended family the right to the land, in the same way that later Norse settlers obtained an odal right to the land they farmed.”

3. (countable, uncountable)A rune in the Elder Futhark, ᛟ, associated with ancestral land.
4. (capitalized, obsolete, often)A large liana native to India and Southeastern Asia, Sarcostigma kleinii, used to produce therapeutic seed oil.

   “Extract the oil from the seeds of Odal (Sarcostigma kleinii) and apply on the affected part of the body.”

5. (alt-of, countable, uncountable)Alternative letter-case form of odal

   “Images of the CPAC stage went viral this weekend as many noted a resemblance to the Odal or Othala Rune, a symbol emblazoned on some Nazi uniforms.”

   “In an email to Politico, Meyer said: “Like the hydra, you can cut off my head and hold it up for the world to see, but two more will quietly appear and be working in the shadows. Slating Trump to speak at [Madison Square Garden]^([sic]), putting ‘poisoning the blood’ in his speeches, setting up Odal runes at CPAC, etc. […].””

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or relating to odal land.
2. (not-comparable)Of or relating to an ode or odes.

   “But what’s clear from the extraordinary proliferation of contemporary lyric odes, and the reactions to the ecstatic claims of these odes, is that the question of poetry, sociality, and globality has become unavoidable: contemporary poetry, which has long resisted incorporation into the discourse of globalization, must be understood on a global, and odal, scale.”