Skrämde

Skrämde is the simple past tense of the Swedish verb skrämma, meaning to frighten or to scare someone. The form is used to describe a completed act of causing fear in another person or animal. For example: “Han skrämde barnen med ett spöke.”

In general Swedish verb morphology, skrämma is a transitive verb and its past tense skrämde is used with a direct object. The verb’s present tense is skrämmer (he/she frightens), and the past participle is skrämt, used with have/had to form perfect constructions, as in “har skrämt.” The imperative singular is skräm.

Etymology and cognates: skrämma is of Germanic origin, with cognates in Danish skræmme and Norwegian skremme, and is related to the older Norse term skræma. The form skrämde reflects the standard Swedish past tense pattern for many verbs in which the stem vowel changes and a deontic ending is added.

Usage and nuance: skrämde can describe literal fright, as in scaring someone with a ghost, or more figurative fear, such as news that skrämde marknaden (scared the market). The expression att skrämma livet ur någon is common in Swedish to mean “to scare someone very badly.” In literature and journalism, skrämde appears in narrative past and reported speech to convey past events.

See also: skrämma, skrämt, skrämmare.