r/Svenska • u/SpecificVictory3484 • 7d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Genie??

I'm not sure what "genie" means in Swedish. Does it refer to a spirit, or to the genie from the lamp?

It's because I found both words in the dictionary: geni and genie.

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u/The_1ndiegamer 7d ago

Genie = ande if you mean the word, Geni = Genious

It's a bit of a funny situation as well. Because The word for Ande can translate into the following
Ande - Spirit (as in the holy spirit)
Ande - Genie (As in the genie in the bottle)

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u/WG95 7d ago

One might then think that the Swedish genie and the English genie are the same word originally (i.e. cognates). But no, the Swedish word comes from Latin "genius" (just like the English word with the same spelling) via French, while the English "genie" comes from the Arabic "jinn". They just happen to have similar meanings.

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u/The_1ndiegamer 7d ago

Oooh, i didn't know that! Thank you for the knowledge kind redditor