drugo

Drugo is a word found in several South Slavic languages, including Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Slovenian. It usually means either “the other” or “second,” depending on context and grammatical gender. It is the neuter singular form of the adjective drugi, and it can function as a pronoun or determiner. As a determiner, it modifies a neuter noun to indicate order, as in phrases like drugo mesto meaning second place. As a pronoun, it can stand in for a previously mentioned neuter noun, for example, to indicate the other/another one.

The word is cognate with equivalents in related languages, such as Serbian drugi (masc.) and druga (fem.). Its meaning can shift slightly with usage: when used with plurals or with masculine or feminine nouns, the corresponding form is used to agree with the noun it modifies. In standard usage, drugo is common in everyday speech to contrast items or to express sequence, though in formal or mathematical contexts it also appears in ordinal expressions.

Etymologically, drugo derives from Proto-Slavic *drugъ, meaning “other, second, different,” with cognates across Slavic languages. Translations into English typically render drugo as “the other” or “second,” depending on context, and its grammatical function (pronoun, determiner, or modifier) is usually clearer from the surrounding sentence rather than from the word alone.