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Thanks for sharing this Norwegian perspective! I'm french and I don't think there is a specific word to describe this. We commonly use the verb "aérer" which

by sirobg 3y ago

Thanks for sharing this Norwegian perspective! I'm french and I don't think there is a specific word to describe this. We commonly use the verb "aérer" which translates to "to ventilate". But when someone uses this term, I think it designates implicitly a short ventilation as described by this German word or your Norwegian one. At least that's what I noticed around me. I don't know of anybody keeping a window open all day long to ventilate when it's cold outside.

lwn 3y ago
In the Netherlands it's called "luchten". It's similar to "aérer". Both translate to "To air out" in English.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Interestingly, Norwegian has both "luft" (air)/"lufte" (to air) and "lukt"/"lukte" (smell, to smell), and it turns out they share the same proto-Germanic origin as Dutch "luchten" as well as the equivalent German terms, and English "to lift" and Norwegian "å løfte", all centering around air with different angles.
  - _pvxk 3y ago
    And in Bergen you can use "lukt" to mean both, "høyt opp i lukten", maybe the Hanseatic influence? (My kid uses "luft" to mean both, "lufte ekkelt".)
- yetihehe 3y ago
  In Poland it's called "przewietrzyć", meaning "let the wind go through".
vidarh 3y ago
Germanic languages are very well suited to these kinds of compound words because you can pretty much keep adding words - hence the many jokes about ridiculously long German ones - where in many other languages if you want to add precision you use a phrase instead, or rely on context... You can do that in Norwegian too, but we tend to be a bit more shy about it than the Germans...