Tveir

Tveir is the Icelandic masculine form of the cardinal numeral two. It is used before masculine nouns to express the quantity of two items, as in tveir menn (two men). For feminine nouns the corresponding form is tvær (two women), and for neuter nouns the form is tvö (two children, tvö börn). Like other numerals in Icelandic, tveir declines for case, so it appears in different forms depending on the sentence (for example, tveir menn in the nominative, tveggja manna in the genitive, tveimur mönnum in the dative).

Origin and cognates: Tveir derives from Proto-Germanic *twai- and is cognate with other North Germanic forms, such as Danish to and Swedish två, reflecting a common Germanic heritage for the word two in the Scandinavian languages. The Icelandic form has been used since the Old Norse period and remains standard in modern Icelandic.

Usage: Tveir is used in everyday Icelandic to count pairs or to describe quantities of masculine nouns. It functions as a determiner that agrees with the gender and case of the noun it modifies, similar to how adjectives behave in Icelandic grammar. In set phrases and numerical constructions, it commonly appears in combination with nouns in their declining forms.

See also: tvær, tvö; Icelandic numerals; Proto-Germanic *twai-; cognates in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.