förlitades

Förlitades is the simple past tense passive form of the Swedish verbförlita sig, meaning to rely on or place trust in something. The form is used to describe a past situation in which a person or a group was depended on by others, rather than the act of relying itself. In everyday language, the active past tense är ofta förlitade sig (they relied on), while förlitades appears mainly in more formal or narrative contexts when the thing being relied on is the subject of the sentence.

Grammatical notes:

Förlita sig is a pronominal (reflexive) verb. Its present tense is förlitar sig, its past active tense is förlitade sig, and its past passive form is förlitades. The past participle of förlita is förlitat, which occurs in perfect constructions such as har förlitat mig på… or har förlitat sig på….

Etymology and related terms:

The verb comes from the root lita (to trust) with the prefix för- to convey reliance. Synonyms and related concepts include tillit (trust), förlitlighet (reliability, formal), and pålitlighet (trustworthiness), though användningen of these terms varies by formality and context.

Examples:

Avtalet förlitades av parterna. The agreement was relied upon by the parties.

Företaget förlitades på sina egna data. The company relied on its own data. In historical or analytical writing, you may find constructions that describe how institutions eller samhällen förlitades på löften eller garantier in the past.

See also:

förlita sig, förlitlighet, tillit, pålitlighet.