Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “skall”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
skall (third-person singular simple present skalls, present participle skalling, simple past and past participle skalled)
skall (strong)
skall n (definite singular skallet, indefinite plural skall, definite plural skalla or skallene)
From Old Norse skjalla (“clash, clatter”). Compare German Schall, Dutch schal, Old Norse skǫll.
skall n
| Declension of skall | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||
| Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
| Nominative | skall | skallet | skall | skallen |
| Genitive | skalls | skallets | skalls | skallens |
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
skall
Matches English shall in tone and is used in similar contexts, for example in legal documents or for dramatic or poetic effect. A good way to think about the more common alternative form ska is also as a "de-dramatized" shall, usually being otherwise identical in meaning to shall. Translating ska is often a matter of rephrasing an English sentence with shall for a more everyday tone: "Jag ska sjunga i kören imorgon" → "I shall sing in the choir tomorrow" (match for meaning) → "I will / I'm going to / I'm (if the rest is casual) gonna sing in the choir tomorrow" (match for tone).
See the usage notes for bli and man for two other examples of words that have a direct translation that is often unidiomatic or a poor match for tone.