varda

From Old Swedish varþa, værþa, from Old Norse verða, from Proto-Germanic *werþaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wert-. Cognate with Norwegian Nynorsk verta (“to become”), obsolete Norwegian Bokmål vorde (“to become”), German werden (“to become”), Dutch worden (“to become”) and English worth (“to become”, obsolete verb).

varda

1. (archaic, still used in the past tense) to become

   Och Gud sade: »Varde ljus»; och det vart ljus.

   And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Genesis 1:3)

   Vänden eder till mig, så varden I frälsta

   Look unto me, and be ye saved

   Jag vart tagen av polisen. (not archaic)

   I got caught by the police.

• The two adverbs var (“where”) and vart (“whereto, whither”) are often mixed up, and confused with a spoken vart short form of varit, supine of vara. The sentence var har du varit? (where have you been?) might become "vart har du vart?" This leads some people to recommend against all use of vart, which they in turn mix up with the past tense of varda.
• In many dialects, the past tense of varda often replaces the past tense of bli.
• Ostrobothnian dialects of Finland-Swedish do not have 'att bliva" at all, and retain the older "att varda" as the traditional auxiliary. (Nykarleby dialect) infinitive: var; present: var/va; imperfect: vart; supine: vari; imperative: var/varen
• Not listed in the conjugation table are subjunctive varde, the obsolete plural forms vordo, varden, and the dialectal vurte or vurti.
• The supine form is lacking, so the perfect and pluperfect tenses are formed using vara (instead of ha) as the auxiliary verb with the past participle.

Han är vorden mycket sjuk.

He has become very ill.