List of English words of Scandinavian origin

This is a list of English words that are probably of modern Scandinavian origin, but whose further origins are unknown. This list excludes words borrowed directly from Old Norse; for those, see list of English words of Old Norse origin.

English words of Scandinavian origin

English words of Danish origin

English words of Norwegian origin

Some words from Norwegian have entered into common English usage. Many of the words relate to the climate and culture of Norway, such as skiing.

  • brisling (small, herring-like, marine fish)
  • fjord (a long indentation of a sea)
  • floe (as in ice floe, a river ice slide)
  • klister (a kind of ski wax, from the word for glue or paste; also common Scandinavian)
  • krill (small shrimp-like animal)
  • lemming (lemen, a rodent species)
  • lefse (Norwegian potato flatbread similar to a tortilla)
  • lutefisk (fish course made from dried fish and lut (lye)).
  • quisling (a traitor, from Vidkun Quisling)
  • ski (equipment for skiing activities; originally a general word for a plank or chop of wood)
  • skrei (from a word meaning "flock" or "crowd", a sprawn-ready codfish)
  • slalom (slalåm; not too steep downhill skiing with many gates and turns)
  • Telemark (a type of ski turn or style of skiing named for the Telemark region in Norway)
  • uff da (interjection, other English spellings of this word include oofda, ufda, oofta and ufta.)
  • yngling (sailing boat class, from an archaic Norwegian word for "youngster")
gollark: I arbitrarily defined it as being paradoxical.
gollark: Your law is true only if your law is false.
gollark: Law: brevity → pointlessness
gollark: Law of Esolangs: they are cool except if they are not.
gollark: However. There's a 78% chance you'd be wrong.

See also

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