legið

Legið is the past participle of the Icelandic verb liggja, meaning to lie or to be located. It denotes a state resulting from lying down or from being situated somewhere, and it is used both as a predicative part of a verb phrase in perfect tenses and as an attributive or descriptive element in certain constructions. The form is commonly encountered in phrases that describe how long something has been in a resting or horizontal position, or where it is located.

In practice, legið appears with auxiliary verbs such as hafa to form perfect tenses. For example, húsið hefur legið þarna í mörg ár translates to “the house has lain there for many years.” It can convey a sense of duration or persistence of a position. Legið is distinct from the past participle lagt, which comes from the transitive verb leggja (to lay or place) and is used for actions where something has been laid down or placed by someone.

Etymology traces legið to Old Norse liggja, the ancestor of related forms in Icelandic and other Germanic languages. The two participles legið and lagt reflect a common Germanic distinction between lying in a position (legið) and having been placed or laid (lagt).

See also liggja, leggja, Icelandic grammar, participles.