Swedish verb· top 5,000 most common

svälta

starve

Meaning

starve

In Swedish: få för lite mat under längre tid

Conjugation

Conjugation of svälta (starve)
Infinitive	att svälta	to starve
Present	svälter	jag svälter
Past	svalt	jag svalt
Supine	svultit	used after har / hade
Perfect	har svultit	jag har svultit
Past perfect	hade svultit	jag hade svultit
Future	ska svälta	or: kommer att svälta
Conditional	skulle svälta	jag skulle svälta
Imperative	svält!	a command
Present participle	svältande	-ing, used as an adjective
Past participle	svulten	used like an adjective, and agrees like one

Passive (-s form)

Passive of svälta
Infinitive	svältas
Present	svälts
Past	svalts
Supine	svultits

Group 4: strong and irregular verbs. Strong verbs change their vowel and have a supine in -it (skriva, skrev, skrivit); irregular ones such as göra and ha follow no pattern. Both have to be learned one by one. Swedish verbs don't change for person: jag, du, hon, vi and de all use svälter. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise svälta

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Yesterday I … (svälta). Which is the past tense?

svälta in a sentence

svältande barn
starving children

Questions

What does svälta mean in English?

svälta means “starve”.

What is the past tense of svälta?

The past tense of svälta is svalt (“jag svalt”). The supine is svultit, used in “jag har svultit”.

What is the present tense of svälta?

svälter, the same for every person: jag svälter, du svälter, vi svälter.

Origin

From Old Swedish svælta, from Old Norse svelta, from Proto-Germanic *sweltaną.

Nearby common words

svälta is number 3,856 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

3,852bacon bacon
3,853grava cure in salt and sugar, pickle
3,854kreativ creative
3,855turist tourist
3,857fruga wife
3,858verkstad workshop
3,859flytande fluently, floating
3,860flit diligence

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Sources: Folkets lexikon (CC BY-SA 2.5) and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), edited by Lingolib. Browse the dictionary