Hetkellinen

Hetkellinen is a Finnish adjective used to describe something temporary, momentary, or intermittent. It refers to events or conditions that occur for a short time or irregularly rather than continuously.

The term is derived from the noun hetki, meaning moment, with the suffix -ellinen, which forms adjectives indicating a characteristic related to the root. In practice, hetkellinen emphasizes brevity or irregular recurrence and is not typically used for long-lasting or permanent states, which might be described by words like väliaikainen or jatkuva.

In usage, hetkellinen inflects like other Finnish adjectives. Examples of forms include hetkellinen (nominative singular), hetkellisen (genitive singular), hetkellistä (partitive singular), and hetkelliset (nominative plural). The adverbial form is hetkellisesti, used to describe actions done in a momentary or episodic manner. Common contexts include weather, disturbances, or phenomena that appear in short bursts, for example, hetkellinen sade meaning a brief shower and hetkelliset sähkökatkokset meaning occasional power outages. The nuance of hetkellinen is that the described condition is not sustained, but occurs in distinct, limited intervals.

See also terms for comparison include väliaikainen (temporary in a broader sense), satunnainen (occasional or random), and ajallinen (temporal). These words help distinguish short-lived or irregular phenomena from broader temporality or randomness in Finnish discourse.