stund

Stund is a noun used in several Germanic languages to denote a brief period of time. In Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, the form stund means a moment or a short while and is common in everyday speech, as in en stund or för en stund. The sense is roughly equivalent to “a moment” or “a little while” in English. The word is widely used in ordinary conversation and in literature to refer to a short duration.

The term has cognates across Germanic languages and can be traced to Proto-Germanic roots, with related forms in Old Norse. It is etymologically connected to the German Stunde, though modern German uses Stunde to mean an hour rather than a moment. In Scandinavian languages, however, stund retains the sense of a short interval rather than a precise unit of time.

In English, stund survives only as an archaic or literary word, appearing in historical texts and translations of older poetry and religious writings. While it is largely out of common use today, its presence in classical literature helps reflect how speakers once framed short periods of time.

Beyond everyday language, stund may appear in historical or regional contexts and in discussions of linguistic evolution among Germanic languages. Overall, its primary contemporary relevance is as a common Scandinavian term for a brief moment and as part of the broader family of words related to time.