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Swedish word of the day: gryning

Catherine Edwards
Catherine Edwards - [email protected]
Swedish word of the day: gryning
It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life. Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

As you've probably noticed, the days are getting much shorter in Sweden. This Swedish word will help you talk about that.

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Gryning means "dawn", the time of day when night comes to an end and the sun starts to rise.

It comes from the verb gry (to dawn), which is related to the adjective grå (grey), so it conveys the idea of going from a totally dark night to a lighter daytime, and a similar word exists in Norwegian: grålysning (literally "grey lighting").

You can also use it metaphorically, as in English, to talk about the dawn of a new era or another kind of symbolic beginning. 

Gryning is a popular word in Swedish, and is regularly called one of the language's most beautiful words.

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Examples

Det är som mörkast innan gryningen

It is darkest before the dawn

Det var gryning när hon var på väg hem

It was dawn when she was on the way home
 
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