Å.
The twenty-ninth and last letter of the Norwegian Bokmål alphabet, written in the Latin script.
Meaning & usage
The twenty-ninth and last letter of the Norwegian Bokmål alphabet, written in the Latin script.
Where this word comes from
Derived from Swedish Å (“the letter Å”). The letter was introduced into official Norwegian orthography by the 1917 spelling reform, replacing the traditional Danish–Norwegian digraph ⟨Aa⟩. It had already been permitted in Bokmål from 1907. The Swedish letter originated in early modern German printing and entered Swedish with the introduction of the printing press, appearing in works including Olaus Petri's catechism and the Swedish translation of the New Testament published in 1526. Graphically, it developed from ⟨Aa⟩ or ⟨aa⟩, with the second ⟨a⟩ written above the first and gradually reduced to a ring. The digraph and later the letter represented the development of Old Norse long á /ɑː/, which became rounded /ɔː/ and was subsequently raised to /oː/ in much of mainland Scandinavian. The Scandinavian orthography meeting held in Stockholm in 1869 proposed introducing ⟨Å⟩ throughout the Scandinavian languages. Norwegian writers including Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson adopted it before it became part of the official spelling standard.
The uppercase form of å, the twenty-ninth and final letter of the Norwegian Bokmål alphabet, written in the Latin script and representing the vowel phonemes /oː/ and /ɔ/.
Where this word comes from
Derived from Swedish Å (“the letter Å”). The letter was introduced into official Norwegian orthography by the 1917 spelling reform, replacing the traditional Danish–Norwegian digraph ⟨Aa⟩. It had already been permitted in Bokmål from 1907. The Swedish letter originated in early modern German printing and entered Swedish with the introduction of the printing press, appearing in works including Olaus Petri's catechism and the Swedish translation of the New Testament published in 1526. Graphically, it developed from ⟨Aa⟩ or ⟨aa⟩, with the second ⟨a⟩ written above the first and gradually reduced to a ring. The digraph and later the letter represented the development of Old Norse long á /ɑː/, which became rounded /ɔː/ and was subsequently raised to /oː/ in much of mainland Scandinavian. The Scandinavian orthography meeting held in Stockholm in 1869 proposed introducing ⟨Å⟩ throughout the Scandinavian languages. Norwegian writers including Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson adopted it before it became part of the official spelling standard.
a fishing village in Nordland, Norway, in Moskenes Municipality, at the southwestern end of the Lofoten archipelago
a village in Nordland, Norway, in Andøy Municipality, on the island of Andøya
a village in Trøndelag, Norway, in Orkland Municipality, near the confluence of the Orkla and Resa rivers
a village in Troms, Norway, in Lavangen Municipality
a village in Troms, Norway, in Ibestad Municipality, on the island of Andørja
a village in Troms, Norway, in Senja Municipality, on the island of Senja
a village in Trøndelag, Norway, in Åfjord Municipality; also called Åfjord, Å i Åfjord or Årnes
a former municipality of Norway, in what is now Trøndelag; officially named Å from 1896 until it was renamed Åfjord in 1934
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Norse á (“small river”), or in some cases from its plural ár (“rivers”), referring to a nearby river or rivers.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.