snúa

From Old Norse snúa, from Proto-Germanic *snōwaną, *snewaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sneh₁- (“to wind; twist; braid; plait”).

snúa (ri-verb, third-person singular past indicative sneri or snéri, supine snúið)

1. to turn [with dative]

   Synonym: venda

2. to face [with dative]

   Synonym: vísa

   Hvor hliðin snýr niður?

   Which side faces downwards?

3. (informal) to translate, to render [with dative]

   Synonyms: þýða, snara, útleggja

4. to change someone's mind, to convert someone [with dative]

   Synonym: telja hughvarf

5. to make someone run errands [with dative]

   Synonym: láta þjóna sér

6. to twine, to twist [with accusative]

   Synonym: flétta

• One of the four ri-verbs in Icelandic, the other being núa (“to rub, massage; to wipe”), gróa (“to grow; to heal”) and róa (“to row”).
• As with the other ri-verbs, the past tense sneri (“I turned”) was originally pronounced with an e sound but is today pronounced with a é sound. There are therefore two spelling variants used: sneri and snéri. The Icelandic Ministry of Education considers both variants to be equally correct,^[1] but many speakers consider the original sneri spelling to be the more correct one.

From Proto-Germanic *snōwaną, *snewaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sneh₁- (“to wind; twist; braid; plait”).

snúa

1. to turn (around), twist

• Danish: sno
• Faroese: snúgva
• Icelandic: snúa
• Norwegian:
  • Norwegian Bokmål: snu
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: snu
• Swedish: sno
• ⇒ Danish: snurre
• ⇒ Faroese: snurra
• ⇒ Swedish: snurra