From: "Marc Okrand"
Newsgroups: startrek.expertforum
Subject: Re: Marc Okrand--apologies to all.
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998

Patrick Goodman wrote...
>> IIRC, and I usually do, "gik'tal" means "to-the-death" and
>> doesn't really exist, Worf made it up.
>
> Gik'tal (sp?, Klingonists?) does exist, as I understood it; it was
> the ritual that Worf performed with Ens. Seto that he made up.

/ghIqtal/ means "to the death" in an archaic form of Klingon. It survives
as an exclamation, something that you'd probably just shout out (or snarl)
at the start of or in the throes of battle or a duel.