lifuð

Lifuð is an Icelandic word that functions in modern usage primarily as a feminine singular past participle form associated with the verb lifa (to live) or with the notion of life. In historical and literary Icelandic, lifuð can appear as an attributive or predicative participle describing something that possesses life or has been living, and it may occur in poetic or scriptural contexts.

In contemporary standard Icelandic, lifuð is not common in everyday prose. For the idea of “alive” or “living” in present contexts, Icelandic typically uses the present participle lifandi, meaning living, or other adjectives such as líflegur in related senses. Lifuð therefore is mainly encountered in older texts, religious translations, sagas, or stylistically marked writing where older grammatical forms are preserved or echoed.

Etymology traces lifuð to the root líf, meaning life, and it forms part of the broader system of Icelandic participles that fuse life-related meaning with tense or voice. The form aligns with Icelandic patterns where feminine singular past participles end in -uð, among other gendered endings, depending on the governing verb and syntactic context.

See also lifa, líf, lifandi, and Icelandic grammar on participles. Since lifuð is mostly historical or stylistic, readers encountering it are typically directed to more common synonyms when seeking current Icelandic usage.