femåriga

Femåriga is a Swedish attributive adjective meaning five years old. It describes a person or thing that has reached the age of five and is formed from the compound fem år gammal (five years old). In Swedish, age adjectives agree with the noun they modify in number and definiteness.

Declension and usage:

- Singular common gender: en femårig pojke (a five-year-old boy).

- Singular neuter: ett femårigt barn (a five-year-old child).

- Plural: femåriga barn, femåriga pojkar (five-year-old children, five-year-old boys). In practice, many speakers also use the periphrastic form fem år gamla for plural nouns, as in fem år gamla barn, though femåriga is common in written Swedish.

Etymology and construction: the form combines fem (five), år (years), and gammal (old). The compound adjective is used attributively before the noun. The phrase can also appear in the more explicit form fem år gammalt/fem år gamla, depending on gender and number.

Contexts and nuance: femåriga is routinely used in everyday language, education, media, and policy discussions to specify age, especially for children. It is typically applied to humans or sometimes to anthropomorphized beings described by age; it is less common for inanimate objects unless age is a defining characteristic.

Examples:

- En femårig flicka leker i parken.

- Femåriga barn planerar ofta första skolstarten.

- Vi följer utvecklingen hos femåriga barn i studien.

Overall, femåriga is a standard, neutral term for describing five-year-old individuals or groups in Swedish.