lagt

Lagt is the past participle of the verb meaning to lay or put in the Scandinavian languages Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Danish, and Swedish. It is used to form perfect and other compound tenses with auxiliary verbs such as har (have) or hadde/hade (had), indicating that an action of placing something has been completed.

In everyday usage, lagt appears in sentences like Swedish: Jag har lagt boken på bordet; Norwegian: Jeg har lagt boken på bordet; Danish: Jeg har lagt brødet på bordet. These constructions show that the action of laying an object has been completed in the past and is relevant to the present or to another time reference. Note that these languages contrast lagt with the past participle of the verb to lie: Norwegian and Danish use ligget, while Swedish uses legat, reflecting a difference between lay vs lie verbs across the languages.

Origin and cognates: lagt derives from the Old Norse verb leggja, meaning to lay or place, and has cognates across the Germanic language family. The form has remained relatively stable in the Scandinavian languages, serving as a key grammatical marker for completed actions involving placing or setting something down.

Usage notes: Because English distinguishes between lay (present) and laid (past), speakers should be mindful of false friends when translating. In Scandinavian languages, the distinction is clearest in the difference between lägga/lege (to lay vs to lie) and their respective participles, with lagt specifically tied to laying.