What is prik?
Unlike in British English, where the word “prick” is both slang for the male genitalia as well as an insult (among other things), prik in Danish is much more benign and a very useful word.
It can be a noun (en prik) or a verb (at prikke), and both the English and the Danish words have the same root – a Proto-Germanic word meaning “to stick or prick”.
The adjective is prikket (spotty), though pletfri would be used to talk about something without any marks or spots. This could be in the sense of a spotless record (often used when talking about driving licences), or more literally, when cleaning to remove spots of dirt or stains.
Why do I need to know prik?
You’ll see similar words in lots of other northern European languages, like prick in Swedish, prickeln in German and prikken in Dutch.
As a noun, it refers to a small dot or spot, like in a prikket trøje (polka dot shirt).
The verb at prikke means either to poke or ‘jab’, in the sense that a medical worker might say der kommer en lille prik (‘you’ll feel a little prick’) or jeg prikker lige (‘I’m just going to inject you’) when giving a blood test or vaccination.
It is also used to refer to dots in punctuation. The most common example is the phrase prikken over i’et, which literally means “the dot on the ‘i’” but is equivalent to the English saying “the cherry on top of the cake”.
You might also hear umlauts – the dots on letters like ä and ö which don’t appear in Danish but are used in Swedish and German – referred to as prikker.
If something is på en prik or “on the dot” it is very accurate or precise: du ligner ham på en prik means “you’re his exact lookalike”. Doing something til punkt og prikke, “to the point and the dot”, is to do it very diligently and accurately.
Member comments