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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Large

This Danish word of the day can be rolled out whenever you’re feeling like the bigger person.

What is large? 

It’s not the Danish word for “big”, but can mean a number of other related adjectives: generous, laid-back, unperturbed, tolerant, not parsimonious, or happy to compromise.

While it’s accurate to say that large doesn’t mean “big”, it’s not completely accurate to say that it doesn’t mean “large”.

That’s because clothes sizing uses the same scale as in Anglophone countries, so a “small” is a small, a “medium” a medium, and a “large” is a large, even though these words are not used to describe sizes in any other contexts (apart from some cafes and fast food restaurants).

Why do I need to know large?

It sounds like a loan word from English whose meaning has become slightly distorted on the journey between languages (see the expression fit for fight for a good example of this).

This is not quite the case, though. The Danish large is borrowed from the French large, which comes from the Latin largus: “plenty, surplus, generous”.

So technically it’s the English word that has warped the meaning of the older Latin one, while the version in Danish seems a bit more faithful to the Latin.

Examples

Han ville slet ikke have noget for benzinen, selvom det var en lang tur. Han var ret large.

He didn’t want anything for the petrol, even though it was a long journey. He was pretty generous.

Hun tabte sin telefon og den gik i stykker, men hun virkede ret large.

She dropped her phone and it broke, but she didn’t seem bothered.

Du bestemmer om vi skal spise fisk eller kylling i aften. Jeg er large.

You can decide whether we have fish or chicken this evening. I’m happy either way.

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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

Here's a Danish word to use when complaining about the hot weather.

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

What is varmebølge?

Varmebølge means “heatwave” in Danish.

Varme means “heat” or “warmth”, and bølge means “wave”, so it’s an easy translation. You’ll sometimes hear hedebølge used too, using another Danish word for “heat”. The word varme is the more common of the two, and can be used in situations where you might say either “heat” or “warmth” in English. Hede, on the other hand, implies a more extreme type of heat.

For example, the Danish words for “hot water bottle” and “central heating” both use varme rather than heat (varmedunk and centralvarme or just varmen, respectively) and “hot weather” is varmt vejr but the phrase i kampens hede means “in the heat of the battle”. 

Why do I need to know varmebølge?

While the above terms – varmebølge and hedebølge – are synonyms on first glance, there’s an important difference.

Denmark’s national meteorological agency, DMI, defines a varmebølge as a three-day period on which the average highest temperature is over 25 degrees Celsius.

For a hot spell to qualify as a hedebølge, on the other hand, the average highest temperature for the three days in question must exceed 28 degrees Celsius

People from southern parts of Europe might consider either type of Danish heatwave to feel more like regular summer weather – and perhaps this helps explain why extreme weather in southern regions in recent years, related to climate change, has led to speculation Denmark could become an increasingly popular summer destination for foreign holidaymakers.

The phrases also reveal a little about how Denmark’s climate influences language and the way Danes talk about the weather.

READ ALSO: Five Danish phrases you only hear in summer

While almost everyone gets quickly tired of long spells of cool, wet summer weather – like those seen during most of June 2024 – it also doesn’t take much for Danes to begin longing for more moderate temperatures to return once it heats up.

Anything over around 24-25 degrees Celsius is likely to be considered for meget (“too much”) what I would consider a regulation summer temperature of 26 degrees might be described as denne forfærdelige varme (“this dreadful heat”).

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