After about 850, the English had regular interaction with the Vikings, or Danes, in Britain.
The two cultures spoke similar languages and began to communicate peacefully.
Sometimes a Danish word and its English counterpart were so similar that one word served for both. At other times the word from one language became dominant over the word from the other language. And in some cases people continued to use both words to mean slightly different things.
In this way English began to develop the capacity for expressing shades of meaning and more complex ideas.
Here are some common modern English words from the Danish language.