Okay, this is relating specifically to the Younger Futhark.
From my understanding, so I could be wrong here, the rune "nauđr" translates to or means something like "struggle/need/hardship". I was wondering in what context this might be used in terms of a language thing, as opposed to divination?
There are two main usages of rune names that we know of. One is the use of the runes to stand in as an abbreviation for the name or the meaning of the name, for example ᚠ standing in for 'sheep' in Icelandic texts or ᛄ standing for 'year(s)' in English ones. In England they got a little more creative, for example using ᚢ to stand for the word 'our' because it happened to be a homonym of ūr 'aurochs.' There isn't a whole lot of context to use nauðr like that, unless it happened to come up in a narrative, and I don't think there are any examples of it, though in principle it is available.
The other is hiding messages in poetry. This was not uncommon in early modern Icelandic poetry but the first example we have is a runic inscription from Norway (N A104) in the middle ages (my translation).
Svefn bannar mér, sótt er barna,
fjón svinkanda, fjalls íbúi,
hests erfaði, ok heys víti,
þræls vansæla. Þat skulu ráða.
I cannot sleep, it's child's illness,
workman's hatred, mountain's inhabitant,
horse's toil, and damager of hay,
thrall's misery. It shall be interpreted.
On its own this doesn't make any clear sense until you realize that all of these items are kennings for rune names, like those that make up the Icelandic rune poem:
This dork spelled out the name of the woman he was too obsessed with to sleep but encoded it so that it would be harder to read: kuþrun Guðrún.
For this rune in particular we do have a better sense of it being used in rune magic than other runes. I'm not sure whether one should consider this a "linguistic" usage, but it's certainly different from a divinatory one as well, though it does seem like good material to incorporate into how one would use it in divination. The formula níu nauðir 'nine needs' recurs in runic charms for what appear to be healing, by threatening the source of the illness with "nine needs." For example, Uppland inscription FV1933;134 (translation from Rundata):
þurs × sarriþu × þursa trutin fliu þu nu funtin is af þiʀ þriaʀ þraʀ ulf × af þiʀ niu noþiʀ ulfr iii isiʀ þis isiʀ auk is uniʀ ulfr niut lufia
'Boil/Spectre of the wound-fever, lord of the giants! Flee now! You are found. Have for yourself three pangs, Wolf! Have for yourself nine needs, Wolf! <iii isiR þis isiR auk is uniR>, Wolf. Make good use of the healing(-charm)!'
(To me, the untranslated part in the middle seems to be doing the same thing with ice-runes, ísir 'ices,' but I don't know the history of interpretation of this inscription, though that would be worthwhile).
There are at least three, maybe four such inscriptions (one, DR EM85;493, a very explicitly Christian one). One also uses þrir þursar, perhaps meaning three thurse runes, and this might also be what is invoked in Skírnismál when Skírnir threatens Gerðr with three thurses. In U FV1933;134 the offending being is also threatened with 'three þrár' (translated here as 'pangs') which is equally alliterative. In my set of verbal meanings for runes I used the related and synonymous word þreyja as the verbal analogue to þurs because of this inscription, as well as the line þreyja þursar in Hrafnagaldr Óðins (for which, see the edition on http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/).
If this line of inquiry interests you even remotely, you'll definitely want to read this paper by Stephen Mitchell, like, before you finish this post: https://www.academia.edu/1500350/The_n_Rune_and_Nordic_Charms
The word neyð which etymologically split from and is otherwise practically the same as nauð(r) is used in a bunch of Icelandic phrases though none are particularly interesting or enlightening in this case, like Flest er í neyðinni nýtandi literally like 'anything is useful in an emergency' but sort of equivalent to English "any shelter in a storm." There's also þegar neyðin er stærst er hjálpin næst which is literally 'when the need is greatest help is nearest' but sort of something like "it's always darkest before the dawn" in English. An English one (for which there are Icelandic equivalents) might be "necessity is the mother of invention" -- we could perhaps even consider making "mother of invention" into a kenning for the rune (or perhaps, "trouble every day").
I'm not sure whether this answers the question but hopefully it's at least interesting.
