Livets

Livets is the genitive form of liv, the noun meaning "life," in Swedish, Norwegian Bokmål and Danish. It expresses possession or the sense of "of life" in phrases and in the names of organizations and works. The base definite form is livet, and the possessive suffix -ets attaches to the definite form, yielding livets (for example, livets rätt, “the right to life” or livets källa, “the source of life”).

In practice, livets appears in everyday language as part of compound expressions and in proper nouns. A well-known example is Livets Ord (Word of Life), a Swedish Pentecostal church founded in 1983 by Ulf Ekman. The name uses livets as the first word, translating to “Word of Life,” and it has been influential in Swedish religious circles. The form also occurs in other titles and phrases, such as livets mysterium or livets gåta, reflecting common theological or philosophical discussions about life.

Usage notes: the form is typical of Scandinavian languages and is usually lowercase when used in ordinary text, while it becomes capitalized as part of a proper noun. In English-language writing, livets is usually translated or represented as part of the translated title or kept only within the original Scandinavian context. Overall, livets functions primarily as a grammatical marker for “of life” within otherwise fixed phrases or names.