Tom gör inte en fluga förnär.

“Tom wouldn’t harm a fly”

I can see that this is an idiomatic expression - it’s the word förnär that is puzzling me. My physical dictionary has it as “för när” and yet some online dictionaries have it as one word.

When you query this word on its own translate.com thinks that it means resentful and yet Google thinks it means feeds. Wiktionary does bring up this example of a fly - and SAOL says it’s an Adverb that means “cause harm or injury to someone”.

I assume SAOL is correct? Thinking of my future usage, rather than just this sentence.

It’s seldom used, but “Att göra någon förnär” is a set expression, meaning “to do somebody harm”.

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