Tilhører

Tilhører is a Norwegian verb meaning to belong to or to be a member of, and it is used to express affiliation, possession, or association with a person, group, object, or jurisdiction. The base form is tilhøre, and the verb is conjugated in the present tense as tilhører, with tilhørte in the past tense and tilhørt as the past participle.

Grammatical usage and construction

Tilhøre typically takes the possessor as the agent of ownership or affiliation, usually expressed with a pronoun or a noun in possessive form. Examples include: bilen tilhører meg (the car belongs to me), øya tilhører Norge (the island belongs to Norway), han tilhører laget (he belongs to the team). The construction can also express institutional or geographic belonging, such as en eiendom som tilhører et selskap. In many contexts, especially in everyday speech, the related phrase høre til is used with similar meaning, as in denne bygningen hører til instituttet (this building belongs to the institute).

Forms and related terms

The verb tilhøre has the present tense tilhører, past tense tilhørte, and past participle tilhørt. The present participle tilhørende can be used as an adjective meaning belonging or affiliated, for example tilhørende dokumenter (belonging documents). The noun tilhørighet denotes membership or belonging, i.e., the state or quality of belonging.

Notes

Tilhøre and høre til are closely related and often interchangeable, though tilhøre may carry a more formal or legal connotation in some contexts. The concept of belonging is central to both personal ownership and group affiliation in Norwegian usage.