åpnes

Åpnes is the present passive form of the Norwegian verb å åpne, meaning “to open.” It functions to express that something is opened or is in the process of being opened, without specifying who performs the action. The form is common in everyday language, signage, manuals, and descriptive prose.

In Bokmål, the infinitive is åpne; the active present tense is åpner; the past tense is åpnet; the present passive is åpnes. The past passive (the thing has been opened) is typically expressed with a finite form of “å være/å bli” plus the past participle, as in døren er åpnet or døren ble åpnet. In practice, åpnes is widely used as the default present passive.

In Nynorsk, the corresponding present passive form is opnast, with infinitive opne and active present opnar; past passive forms include opna. The two standards thus offer parallel but distinct inflectional patterns: åpnes in Bokmål versus opnast in Nynorsk, reflecting broader orthographic and syntactic differences between the standards.

Usage notes:

- Åpnes often appears in print on doors, machines, and software interfaces to indicate that an item can be opened or will open without naming an agent.

- It is common in procedural or instructional text where the focus is on the action itself rather than who performs it.

Etymology: the verb å åpne derives from Old Norse opna, linked to the broader Germanic root meaning “to open.” The Bokmål form åpnes reflects later orthographic developments, while the nynorsk cognates opnast/opne preserve the shared ancestry of the word.