Words by

Ish Sveinsson Houle

Photo by

Art Bicnick

The Grapevine’s guide to sounding Icelandic, one word at a time

I’ll be with you in just a minute! Hey, can you wait a moment? Oooone second, I’m on my way!  

Are you chronically late? Work in customer service? Or sometimes just need a sec?  

Lucky for you, this Word Of The Issue focuses on some of the many ways Icelandic has for saying “one moment.” Why do they need so many ways of saying this? Maybe it’s that þetta reddast mentality, maybe it’s the constant need to adapt plans due to weather, maybe Icelanders are biologically disposed to running behind schedule — who knows? 

We’ll start with the most common: augnablik. I first learned augnablik as a child. I’m ashamed to admit, it was after reading it on the Icelandair website. With the cutesy incorporation of the Icelandic language into their website, Icelandair has it set up so that whenever their page is loading or buffering, it reads “Augnablik: This means ‘one moment’ in Icelandic, literally ‘blink of an eye.’” Augnablik is a compound word of auga and blik, which mean eye and blink, hence “blink of an eye.” Icelanders have quickened this word to save time for doing whatever they needed just one more second to do.  

Then there’s andartak. Að anda means “to breathe,” and tak comes from að taka, or “to take.” Continuing the theme of bodily functions, this next “one moment” phrase means basically “in the time it takes to take one breath.”   

But then we take a hard left from the body for our next word, örskotsstund. Örskotsstund is a compound of ör + skots + stund, which means arrow + shot + moment. Essentially, it will be as quick as the firing of an arrow.  

So there you have it: three ways to say one moment. Next time you’re running late to work, feel free to let your boss know you’ll be there in the time it takes to shoot an arrow.  

Learn more Icelandic words hér.