öldum

Öldüm is the Turkish first-person singular simple past tense form of the verb ölmek, meaning "I died." It is used when the speaker is the subject and refers to a past event of dying, whether literal or figurative.

Grammatically, öldüm is built from the verb root öl- (to die) with the past tense suffix -dü (whose vocalism harmonizes with the root) and the first-person singular suffix -m. Turkish verb forms are written as a single word, and the vowels in such forms follow vowel harmony rules. The canonical Turkish spelling is öldüm; the variant öldum without the umlaut on the u is a common ASCII misspelling or simplification seen in non-Turkish contexts.

Etymology and related forms: The verb ölmek belongs to the same root family as ölüm (death), a noun derived from the same root. The pair ölmek and ölüm share a common semantic field related to death and dying, while other forms of the verb yield related past and present meanings (e.g., ölüyordum, öleceğim).

Usage and examples: The literal sense is used to state that someone died. In figurative or emphatic contexts, Turkish speakers frequently employ öldüm to convey intensity, as in korkudan öldüm (I died of fear) or gülmekten öldüm (I died laughing). Such expressions are common in talk and literature to express strong emotion rather than a literal death.

See also: ölmek (to die), ölüm (death).