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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Svedig

Feeling hot? It's time for the word of the day.

What is svedig?

Svedig is the adjective form of sved, “sweat”: in other words: sweaty.

The verb at svede, “to sweat”, also comes from the same root: Jeg sveder for meget når jeg cykler op ad bakken, så jeg er nødt til at tage bussen på arbejde (“I sweat too much when I cycle uphill so I have to take the bus to work”).

The adjective, svedig, can mean either to be soaked with sweat or to be sweating, much like you would use “sweaty” to describe either a thing or a person in English.

Why do I need to know svedig?

If you want a fresh-sounding slang adjective, equivalent to saying “cool”, “sweet”, “awesome” and so on, then svedig is a good option. It’s a bit more up to date than the somewhat tired-sounding fedt (literally “fat”, but also used to mean “cool” or “great” in the slang sense).

Other similar slang words are sej (“tough”), kanon (“cannon”) and stærk (“strong”). The least cool-sounding word for “cool” is probably super (“super”).

The new meaning of svedig as something too cool to actually sweat emerged relatively recently. Dictionary site ordnet lists examples from 1998 and 2003 which seem to suggest it underwent an evolution from describing music that can make you sweat from dancing, towards being a more general positive adjective.

In 2011 newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad reported that “the word svedig has taken a new meaning in the language of the youth”.

“Svedig (now) refers (not only) to perspiration and dripping foreheads, but means something more along the lines of exciting, fantastic, cool… in all cases, something really good,” it stated.

Examples

Svedige sko, mand!

Sweet trainers, dude!

Jeg var til koncert med Jada for leden, det var ret svedigt.

I went to a Jada concert the other day, it was pretty cool.

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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Kværn

This unassuming little word pops up surprisingly often in Danish, so it's a very good one to have in your vocabulary.

Danish word of the day: Kværn

What is kværn?

Kværn is a noun meaning “mill” or “grinder”, used to refer to any kind of tool or machine that breaks a substance down into smaller pieces.

kværn can be small, for example a peberkværn (pepper mill) or kaffekværn (coffee grinder).

There’s some overlap between kværn and mølle, the Danish word for “mill”. In the past, mølle might have been used to refer to household items like the coffee grinder. It’s now become the reserve of larger pieces of machinery like windmills (vindmølle), but there is stills a bit of interchangeability in Swedish, a sister tongue of Danish.

If you’re in Skåne – the Swedish province closet to Denmark — the word for “mill” in the local dialect is not kvarn but mölla.

Why do I need to know kværn?

The above describes how to use kværn as a noun, but it’s also a verb, at kværne, meaning “to grind” or “to mill”.

Apart from everyday uses like jeg kværner kaffebønnerne (”I’ll grind some coffee beans”), you won’t hear it too often in its literal sense, but it has a lot of figurative meanings too.

For example jeg var så sulten, at jeg kværnede maden uden at sige et ord means ”I was so hungry I gobbled down (literally ’crushed’ or ’ground’) the food without saying a word”.

This can also apply to drinking: han sad og kværnede bajere hele aftenen (“he sat there downing beers all evening”).

It can also be used to describe working very hard, as in jeg skal bare kværne, indtil projektet er færdig (“I have to keep grafting until the project is finished”).

Finally if someone kværner bare løs, it probably means they are talking non-stop.

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