The answer is: medlem.

It probably made it to Sweden by way of the German mitglied and consists of two words: med, meaning co- or with, and lem, meaning limb.

We blush, but on the off-chance that anyone reading this is thinking of writing erotic fiction in Swedish, when you would use the word member in English to talk about… er, you know what… don’t use the word medlem in Swedish, just write lem. Or better yet, neither.

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Let’s move on.

You can, as in English, not just be a member of something but also have a membership, or in Swedish ett medlemskap. This can be used for all sorts of groups, from Nato to a sports club.

Because Swedes enjoy compound words, you can be a fackföreningsmedlem (trade union member), körmedlem (choir member), familjemedlem (family member), besättningsmedlem (crew member), hedersmedlem (honorary member) and so on.

A member of parliament is more often referred to as a riksdagsledamot, although riksdagsmedlem would work in theory.

Interestingly, ledamot also means member, body part or limb, but instead comes from the Old Swedish word lidhamot. You can usually think of ledamot as something that describes a more formal role, whereas medlem is more informal and doesn’t come with officially defined duties.

You can be a member of The Local, too. We tend to call our paying readers members (medlemmar) rather than subscribers in honour of our close relationship with our audience, but in other contexts you’d usually talk about subscribers as prenumeranter rather than medlemmar.

What preposition should you use together with medlem? Either i (in) or av (of) is grammatically correct, although i tends to be favoured in Swedish.

Examples:

Sverige är på väg att bli medlem i/av Nato

Sweden is about to become a member of Nato

Jag funderar på att säga upp mitt Facebookmedlemskap

I’m thinking of cancelling my Facebook membership

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.