Edellisellä

Edellisellä is the adessive singular form of the Finnish adjective edellinen, meaning “previous” or “last.” It is used to describe a noun that is in the adessive case and refers to something earlier in time or in a sequence, for example edellisellä viikolla, which means “in the previous week.”

In Finnish, adjectives agree with the noun they modify in number and case. Therefore edellisellä is not a standalone noun but a grammatical form that accompanies a following noun in the adessive. It is commonly encountered in both written and spoken Finnish in contexts that point to something earlier than the present, such as time references (edellisellä kuukaudella, edellisellä viikolla) or when comparing to the present (the previous chapter, the previous page).

Morphology and usage notes: edellinen serves as a basic meaning of “previous/last,” while edellisellä shows how the word is declined to match the noun’s adessive case. Other case forms of edellinen exist for different grammatical functions, but edellisellä specifically signals an adessive relationship (on/at the previous X).

Examples:

- edellisellä viikolla järjestettiin tapahtuma. (An event was held in the previous week.)

- edellisellä kerralla unohdin ottaa mukaan asiakirjat. (Last time I forgot to bring the documents.)

- edellisellä sivulla on lisätietoja. (On the previous page there is more information.)