Heimsótti

Heimsótti is the past tense form of the Icelandic verb heimsækja, meaning to visit someone at their home or to stop by a place. It describes a completed act of visiting in the past and is used with a direct object that denotes the person or location visited.

Usage examples illustrate its typical use. Ég heimsótti foreldra mína í gær. This translates to I visited my parents yesterday. Hún heimsótti vini sína nýlega, meaning she recently visited her friends. The verb is transitive and commonly used for everyday visits, whether informal, such as calling on family or friends, or more formal, such as visiting a workplace or institution.

Etymology and related terms help place heimsótti in Icelandic vocabulary. It derives from heim-, meaning home, and sækja, meaning to seek or go toward, reflecting the action of going to someone’s home or place. A closely related noun is heimsókn, which means a visit or home visit in general. The concept of heimsókn covers both social visits and official calls, and heimsótti is the finite past form used in narrative and description of past events.

In usage, the form aligns with standard Icelandic conjugation for regular weak verbs, and it commonly appears in past-tense narratives, reports, and personal communications. For future or ongoing visits, speakers use other tenses of heimsækja or periphrastic constructions with hafa or vera, as in Ég mun heimsækja? or Ég hef heimsótt.