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Swedish word of the day: ont

Catherine Edwards
Catherine Edwards - [email protected]
Swedish word of the day: ont
Ever wondered how to say 'everything hurts' in Swedish? Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

'Ont' is a small Swedish word with a wide range of uses, many of them applicable during the flu season. Here's a look at where this word comes from and what to do with it.

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The most common meaning of ont is pain or hurt. You can use it to describe localised pain, in which case it is often used as part of a verb phrase, ha ont (i), which literally means "to have pain in".

So you might need to say: jag har ont i halsen (literally "I have pain in the throat", but more accurately translated as "I have a sore throat"), jag har ont i magen ("I have a stomachache"), or jag har ont i ryggen ("I have back pain/my back hurts"). You might also hear people use the verb , for example jag fick ont i magen ("I got a pain in my stomach") which tends to refer to a pain that came on suddenly.

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A similar phrase is göra ont, which could be translated literally as "to do/make pain", but basically means "to hurt".

This can be used with a body part as the subject of the verb, for example halsen gör ont ("the throat makes pain", or "my throat hurts"), kärleken gör ont ("love hurts"), or the subject might be the thing causing the pain. For example, det gör ont means "it hurts" – and is the title of a catchy Swedish Eurovision entry from the early 2000s. If everything hurts, you say allt gör ont.

Ont comes from the Old Norse adjective vándr (evil), and when used as a noun (ett ont) it means an evil or a bad thing. The related adjective ond also means evil, bad or angry, although it is a slightly old-fashioned term for anger. And look out for the set phrase på gott och ont (for better or worse). 

Another use of ont you should be aware of is that when combined with the preposition om, it has a metaphorical sense, meaning "lack of" or "shortage of", and is most often used with uncountable nouns. You might hear someone say they have ont on tid (lack of time), ont om pengar (lack of money) or ont om vatten (lack of water).

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Examples

Har du ont nånstans?

Do you have any pain?

Den här valpen är så gullig att det gör ont

This puppy is so cute it hurts

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 USAmazon UKBokus or Adlibris.

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