death-price

English

Noun

death-price (plural death-prices)

  1. (historical, Germanic law) A monetary value assigned to a person based on their social rank, representing the compensation to be paid by an offender to the victim’s family in the event of unlawful killing.
    • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 7:
      Sad lays were sung about the beset king,
      the vicious raids and ravages of Grendel,
      [...] how he would never
      parley or make peace with any Dane
      nor stop his death-dealing nor pay the death-price.
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