gli ("to slide, glide, slip") is a short, monosyllabic strong verb — the kind whose infinitive is just two or three letters but whose paradigm is fully irregular. It is intransitive at heart: things gli, they don't gli something else. A skier glir over the snow, a boat glir across the water, a foot glir out on the ice, and metaphorically a situation can gli ut (drift out of control) or a conversation can gli lett (flow easily). The English cognate "glide" hides in plain sight — and, as we'll see, it used to be a strong verb too.
Conjugation
Class: strong (long-vowel i–type, with supine in -dd). Auxiliary: ha.
| Tense / mood | Norwegian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitiv | å gli | to slide / glide |
| Presens | glir | slide(s), glide(s) |
| Preteritum | gled | slid, glided |
| Perfektum | har glidd | have/has slid |
| Pluskvamperfektum | hadde glidd | had slid |
| Futurum | skal/vil gli | will slide |
| Imperativ | gli! | slide! / glide! |
| Presens partisipp | glidende | gliding (adjective) |
A monosyllabic strong verb
gli belongs to the small set of strong verbs whose infinitive is a single long vowel after the consonant cluster — like bli, se, ri, gni. The present simply adds -r: glir. The preterite changes the vowel to e and adds a single -d: gled. The supine returns to i but doubles the consonant: glidd (the doubling marks the short vowel and the -d of the supine at once).
Because the past forms are genuinely irregular and not predictable from the present, this is exactly where learners reach for a weak ending — glidde, glidet — and go wrong. There is no weak form: gli is strong, full stop. The preterite is gled, the supine glidd.
Båten glir stille ut av havna.
The boat glides quietly out of the harbour.
Han gled på isen og slo kneet.
He slipped on the ice and hurt his knee.
Skiene har glidd dårlig hele dagen — vi trenger ny smøring.
The skis have run badly all day — we need fresh wax.
Intransitive by nature
The thing to internalise is that gli describes the subject's own motion: the subject slides, glides, or slips of its own accord or under gravity. It does not take a direct object. If you want "to slide something," Norwegian reaches for a different verb — skyve (push/slide something along) or la noe gli (let something glide). This is the opposite of a verb like legge (to lay something down), which is transitive; gli is the intransitive partner in spirit.
Because of this, gli pairs beautifully with directional particles and prepositions describing a path: gli over (glide across), gli ned (slide down), gli forbi (glide past), gli inn i (slip into).
Tiden glir fort når man har det gøy.
Time slides by quickly when you're having fun.
Bilen gled sakte ned bakken da bremsene sviktet.
The car slid slowly down the hill when the brakes failed.
gli ut, gli unna and det glir
gli anchors several idioms where the literal "slide" sense shades into something abstract:
- gli ut — to slide out / drift out of hand. Of a project or budget: å gli ut = to get out of control, lose its grip. Of handwriting or a deadline, to "slip." Literally also "slide outward."
- gli unna — to slip away, dodge, wriggle out of. Han glir unna hver gang vi tar opp temaet — "He dodges every time we bring it up."
- gli over i — to merge gradually into, shade into. Frustrasjonen gled over i sinne — "The frustration shaded into anger." This captures a smooth, imperceptible transition.
- det glir — impersonal, "it's slippery" (the ground/road) or, figuratively, "it's going smoothly." Context decides: on an icy pavement det glir warns of slipperiness; in a project meeting det glir fint means "it's running smoothly."
Budsjettet har glidd ut, og nå mangler vi penger.
The budget has gotten out of hand, and now we're short of money.
Politikeren gled unna spørsmålet med en vits.
The politician dodged the question with a joke.
Vær forsiktig på trappa — det glir når det er vått.
Be careful on the stairs — it's slippery when it's wet.
glidende — the participle as adjective
The present participle glidende has settled into an adjective meaning "smooth, sliding, seamless." A glidende overgang is "a smooth transition," and glideskala (a related compound) is "a sliding scale." This is the most common place you'll meet the participle, so it's worth knowing as vocabulary in its own right.
Vi ønsker en glidende overgang fra det gamle til det nye systemet.
We want a smooth transition from the old system to the new one.
Common Mistakes
❌ Han glidde på isen.
Incorrect — gli is strong; the preterite is gled, not the weak glidde
✅ Han gled på isen.
He slipped on the ice.
❌ Skiene har glidt dårlig i dag.
Incorrect — the supine is glidd with two d's, not glidt
✅ Skiene har glidd dårlig i dag.
The skis have run badly today.
❌ Jeg har gled hele veien ned.
Incorrect — gled is the preterite; after har use the supine glidd
✅ Jeg har glidd hele veien ned.
I've slid all the way down.
❌ Hun glir esken bortover bordet.
Incorrect — gli is intransitive; to slide an object, use skyve (or la den gli)
✅ Hun skyver esken bortover bordet.
She slides the box across the table.
Key Takeaways
- gli / glir / gled / har glidd / gli! — strong and fully irregular; no weak forms.
- Spelling traps: gled (one d) in the preterite, glidd (two d's) in the supine.
- gli is intransitive — the subject slides itself; to slide an object, use skyve.
- Learn the idioms: gli ut (get out of hand), gli unna (dodge), gli over i (shade into), det glir (it's slippery / it's going smoothly).
- The participle glidende means "smooth, seamless" — en glidende overgang.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- The Strong Verb Ablaut ClassesB1 — The ablaut (vowel-change) classes of Norwegian strong verbs grouped by pattern — i–a–u, i–e–e, y/ju–ø–ø, a–o–å, e–a–e — each mapped onto its English cognate class so you can often guess the forms.
- Strong Verbs: Ablaut and the Vowel-Change ClassesA2 — Strong verbs build the past by changing the stem vowel instead of adding an ending (drikke → drakk → drukket) — the main ablaut series, grouped, with full tables and English cognate hooks.
- Verb Reference: How to Use These TablesA2 — How to read the Norwegian verb-reference pages — the five principal parts, weak vs strong classes, and the supine (the har-form).
- Inchoative and Anticausative VerbsC1 — How Norwegian expresses change-of-state without an external agent — labile verbs (vannet koker / jeg koker vann), the anticausative seg (døra åpner seg), the -s middle, and bli + adjective — and how to tell the anticausative seg from a genuine reflexive.