Much speculation has gone into the meaning of Lewis Carroll's word "vorpal," with the author himself remaining unsure. However, if we take the word apart in the simplist way we could arrive at "vor" as the Latin for "eat" as in voracious, and "-pal" as the suffix meaning "with." Therefore, "vorpal" could mean "with great hunger" or even "with great appetite" or "with great eagerness," all of which describe Nightblood perfectly.