vara.
to be
Meaning & usage
to be to occupy a place, to be (somewhere)
Var har du varit?
to be to occur, to take place
Det var fest igår.
to be to exist
Att vara eller inte vara, det är frågan.
to be Indicates that the subject and object are the same.
Bruce Wayne är Batman.
to be Indicates that the values on either side of an equation are the same.
ett plus ett är två.
to be Indicates that the subject plays the role of or belongs to the group represented by the predicate nominal. This is idiomatically applied more broadly compared to English, as the examples below show. Including an article or making the noun definite – like in English – is not ungrammatical and does not change the meaning of the examples – it is only unidiomatic (and often intuitively redundant to native speakers, for example for giving a count of one (en/ett) to a role, similar to how "became a president" sounds to English speakers). See also the usage notes for en, which include a rule of thumb.
Han blev president 2007.
Jag är islänning.
to be Connects a noun to an adjective that describes it.
Såsen är krämig.
to be Forms a passive voice that indicates a state or a completed action. The examples below show comparisons against -s, which also forms the passive voice. The examples are kept basic for the sake of illustration and do not always represent the most idiomatic way to say things in either Swedish or English.
Rummet städas.
Rummet är städat.
to be Used to form the perfect aspect with certain intransitive verbs.
Jag är uppstigen sedan en timme.
to be Used to indicate things like age, height, temperature, weather, ...
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Swedish vara, væra from Old Norse vera, earlier vesa, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną. Cognate with Danish være, Icelandic vera, Norwegian være.
to generate pus
Såret började vara efter några timmar.
Where this word comes from
Attested since 1664. From var (“pus”) + -a.
to last (go on for)
Mötet varade flera timmar.
to last, to keep (not spoil)
Mjölken varar längre i kylskåpet.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Swedish vara, from Middle Low German waren, from Old Saxon waron, from Proto-Germanic *warōną. Cognate with Danish vare.
existence, being
Varats olidliga lätthet
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Swedish vara, væra from Old Norse vera, earlier vesa, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną. Cognate with Danish være, Icelandic vera, Norwegian være.
a commodity (something bought and sold)
Kärleken har blivit en vara.
a commodity (something bought and sold) an item (as a singular of goods), an article
att lägga en vara i varukorgen
a commodity (something bought and sold) goods, merchandise, wares
billiga varor
varor som är på rea
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Swedish vara, from Old Norse vara, from Middle Low German ware. Cognate with Danish vare, German Ware, English ware. Could be related to Sanskrit वर (vara, “valuable”).
care
ta vara på
ta sig till vara
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old Swedish vara, from Old Norse vari, cognate with Danish vare, possibly from an unattested Old Swedish *vari (“care”), related to Icelandic vari (“caution, carefullness”), but influenced by Middle Low German ware namen, related to German wahren, wahrnehmen.
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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.