Valyrian Words for Dragons: High Valyrian Dragon Vocabulary

Quick Answer: The High Valyrian word for dragon is zaldrīzes (zal-DREE-zes). The core dragon vocabulary is dracarys (dragonfire, used as the fire command), sōvēs (fly!, from sōvegon, to fly), lykirī (calm, be still), gaomagon (to come, go or move), qrinuntos (ordinary fire) and the epithet ondosos qrinuntoso ("of blood and fire"). All come from David J. Peterson's vocabulary for Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.

Dragons are the reason most people meet High Valyrian at all. The language is the old tongue of the Valyrian Freehold, an empire built on dragons, and the Targaryens who survive its fall still speak it to their mounts. When a rider wants fire, flight or calm, the order comes in High Valyrian — never in the Common Tongue.

This guide is a vocabulary list: the words for dragons, dragonfire and dragon riding, what each one means, how it is built and how to say it. If you want the scene-by-scene list of every line spoken in the prequel, that lives in High Valyrian Phrases in House of the Dragon. Here we stay with the words themselves.

Everything below is attested in Peterson's work as used on the shows and in this site's existing High Valyrian references. Where a word you might expect — a word for wing, scale or egg, for instance — is not in those sources, we leave it out rather than guess.

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The Dragon Vocabulary at a Glance

The rest of this post takes these one group at a time.

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Zaldrīzes: The Word for Dragon

Zaldrīzes is the standard High Valyrian noun for "dragon." It is the same word in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, because Peterson keeps one continuous vocabulary across both productions.

Three things are worth knowing about it.

It is lunar gender. High Valyrian sorts nouns into four genders — lunar, solar, terrestrial and aquatic — that work like grammatical classes, not like male and female. Zaldrīzes is lunar, the class that holds many powerful animate beings. That matters for any word that has to agree with it, like an adjective or a possessive.

There is no article. High Valyrian has no word for "a" or "the," so zaldrīzes can mean "a dragon" or "the dragon" depending on context. The famous Astapor line uses it in the general sense: dragons, as a kind of creature.

The long ī carries the stress. The macron on ī marks a long vowel. A long vowel makes its syllable heavy, and in High Valyrian a heavy second-to-last syllable takes the stress. So it is zal-DREE-zes, with the drī held longer than the vowels around it.

The best-known sentence with this word is Daenerys's line in Astapor, Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor, "a dragon is not a slave." That line has its own full breakdown — word order, the verb iksos, the scene — in A Dragon Is Not a Slave in High Valyrian, so we keep it brief here.

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Dracarys: Dragonfire

Dracarys (DRAK-a-ris) means "dragonfire." It is the most famous word in the language and one of the oldest: it appears in George R.R. Martin's novels, and Peterson built the surrounding grammar to fit it.

For a vocabulary list, one point matters most: dracarys is a noun, not a verb. Riders use it as a command, but the order comes from context and from training, the way a trained animal answers one cue word. It is not "breathe fire!" in grammatical form. It is "dragonfire," said at the right moment.

That puts it in a different category from the next word on this list, sōvēs, which is a true imperative. The difference is a good way to see how High Valyrian grammar works: one dragon command is a bare noun, the other is a conjugated verb.

The full story of dracarys — its first use by Daenerys, its later scenes and how it differs from other fire words — is in Dracarys Meaning: What Daenerys Actually Says. Here it is enough to know what it means and how it fits the rest of the dragon vocabulary.

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Sōvegon and Sōvēs: To Fly

If dracarys is the word for fire, sōvēs is the word for flight.

Sōvegon is the infinitive, the dictionary form of the verb. Most High Valyrian verbs cite in -agon or -egon, so once you know the pattern you can spot them: sōvegon (to fly), gaomagon (to move), rōvāgon (to grow).

Sōvēs is the imperative, the form used to give an order. It became one of the best-known words from House of the Dragon, where Rhaenyra uses it on her dragon Syrax to send her into the air.

Pronunciation tip: sōvēs has two long vowels, and both should be held. English speakers tend to shorten the second one. Keep it long — SOH-vays, not SOH-vez.

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Lykirī: Calm, Be Still

Not every dragon command is about violence. Lykirī (li-KI-ree) means "calm," "easy" or "be still." Riders use it to soothe an agitated dragon.

It is useful to compare its tone with the others:

• Dracarys unleashes.
• Sōvēs directs.
• Lykirī settles.

That last one is the closest thing in the dragon vocabulary to a word of comfort, and in the shows it is said quietly, not shouted. It is the word you would use if you were the one standing next to the dragon.

Pronunciation tip: the final ī is long. English makes unstressed final vowels short and weak; High Valyrian does not. Hold the last "ee" fully. The stress falls on ki.

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Gaomagon: To Come, to Go, to Move

Gaomagon (gao-MAH-gon) is a directional verb meaning "to come," "to go" or "to move." It appears in riding contexts, where direction matters, and in ordinary speech too.

It is less dramatic than the other commands, but it shows something about High Valyrian dragon vocabulary: much of it is not special "dragon words" at all. It is ordinary language — move, fly, be calm — that becomes a command when said to a dragon. That is realistic. Riders of horses use ordinary words like "walk" and "stop" the same way.

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Fire Words: Dracarys vs Qrinuntos

High Valyrian keeps two words for fire, and mixing them up is one of the most common learner mistakes.

Qrinuntos (kri-NUN-tos) is the everyday word. A fire in a fireplace is qrinuntos. A burning torch is qrinuntos. A dragon's breath is not — that is dracarys.

The split tells you how central dragons were to Valyrian culture. A language that bothers to separate "fire" from "dragonfire" belongs to a people who saw the difference every day.

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Ondosos Qrinuntoso: Of Blood and Fire

The most famous ceremonial phrase in the dragon register is:

Ondosos qrinuntoso (on-DOH-sos kri-NUN-to-so) — "of blood and fire."

It is a genitive phrase: both words carry the case ending that means "of." Fire here is qrinuntos, the general word, in its genitive form qrinuntoso. The phrase sums up how the Targaryens see themselves — a dynasty of blood and fire — and it echoes the house words of the Targaryens in English.

It is a good example of how High Valyrian grammar builds meaning. You do not need a separate word for "of"; the noun ending does that work. For more on cases, see the High Valyrian Grammar Guide.

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Power Words That Travel With Dragons

Dragon scenes in both shows come wrapped in the vocabulary of power. A few attested words appear alongside the dragon register again and again:

Rōvāgon belongs to the theme of Valyrian growth and expansion — the empire that dragons built. Kostys and kostōba are the language of strength, as in the warrior's assertion Kostōba iksan, "I am powerful." Āeksion Ondos is a ceremonial epithet tied to Valyrian fire worship.

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Commands vs Phrases: Where This List Stops

This post is a word list. It tells you what each dragon word means and how it is built. It deliberately does not walk through every scene and every line, because that is a different job, and splitting it keeps both pages useful:

• For every High Valyrian line in House of the Dragon, episode by episode, with the dragon commands in context, read High Valyrian Phrases in House of the Dragon.
• For the single word dracarys in depth, read Dracarys Meaning.
• For the Astapor line, read A Dragon Is Not a Slave in High Valyrian.

The House of the Dragon guide also notes that the show includes further directional and positional riding commands that are not yet fully catalogued in public sources. We have not listed any of them here, because we cannot verify them.

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What Is Not on This List, and Why

People search for High Valyrian words for egg, wing, scale, rider, dragonlord or dragonstone. If those words exist in Peterson's private files or in material we have not seen, we cannot cite them, so they are not here.

This matters because dragon vocabulary is exactly where fan-made words spread fastest. A list that looks complete but includes invented words teaches you something false, and you will not find out until someone who knows the language reads your tattoo or your fan fiction. The words on this page are fewer, but each one traces back to Peterson's vocabulary as used on the shows.

If you are learning High Valyrian seriously, the Duolingo course, which Peterson helped write, is the most reliable place to find vocabulary beyond this list.

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Pronunciation Cheat Sheet

Three general rules cover all of them:

1. Long vowels are held about twice as long and usually pull the stress.
2. The R is tapped, as in Spanish or Italian.
3. Unstressed vowels keep their full sound. No English-style "uh."

The complete rules are in the High Valyrian Pronunciation Guide.

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Using These Words Yourself

A few practical tips if you want to use dragon vocabulary in cosplay, writing or a tabletop game:

• Pick the right command for the moment. Dracarys for fire, sōvēs for flight, lykirī to calm. Shouting dracarys when you mean "fly" is the most common mistake in fan videos.
• Use zaldrīzes as it is. Do not add English plural endings or articles. Context tells the listener whether you mean one dragon or dragons in general.
• Keep ordinary fire ordinary. A campfire in your story is qrinuntos, not dracarys.
• Do not coin compound words. It is tempting to glue zaldrīzes onto another word to make "dragon rider" or "dragon egg." High Valyrian word formation has rules, and a guessed compound will almost certainly be wrong.

High Valyrian is not taught on Tengwar, but David J. Peterson's other Game of Thrones language is: you can learn Dothraki free with structured lessons and an AI tutor. For a broader start, the High Valyrian Language Guide covers the history, sounds and grammar of the whole language.

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People Also Ask

What is the High Valyrian word for dragon? The word for dragon is zaldrīzes, pronounced zal-DREE-zes. It belongs to the lunar gender and is used across both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.

What are the High Valyrian dragon commands? The attested commands are dracarys (dragonfire), sōvēs (fly) and lykirī (calm, be still). The verb gaomagon (to come, to go, to move) also appears in riding contexts.

Is dracarys a verb in High Valyrian? No. Dracarys is a noun meaning "dragonfire," used as a command through context. Sōvēs is a true imperative of sōvegon, "to fly."

What is the difference between dracarys and qrinuntos? Dracarys is dragonfire, the fire a dragon breathes. Qrinuntos is ordinary, elemental fire, like a hearth or a torch.

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Related Reading

• Dracarys Meaning — What Daenerys Actually Says in High Valyrian
• A Dragon Is Not a Slave in High Valyrian — The Astapor Line Explained
• High Valyrian Phrases in House of the Dragon — Complete Guide
• High Valyrian Dictionary — Common Words & Phrases by Category
• 50 Essential High Valyrian Words — Vocabulary Guide
• High Valyrian Grammar Guide for Beginners (2026)
• High Valyrian Greetings: Hello, Goodbye and Polite Phrases