Hävitä

Hävitä is a Finnish verb with several related senses centering on loss, disappearance and defeat. In everyday usage it commonly means "to lose" (as in a contest or game) or "to disappear" (an object vanishing or ceasing to exist). In imperative form it can also be used as a brusque command equivalent to "Get lost!" and is considered rude in that register.

The word is part of a small family of related forms and derivatives. Hävittää is a causative counterpart meaning "to cause to disappear" or "to destroy," while hävitys denotes the act of destruction or devastation. The antonym of hävitä in competitive contexts is voittaa ("to win"). Compound and derived words include hävittäjä, used in Finnish to denote a fighter (aircraft) or one who destroys, reflecting the term’s connection to elimination or defeat.

Hävitä appears across registers from informal speech ("avaimet hävisivät" – "the keys disappeared") to sports reporting ("joukkue hävisi ottelun" – "the team lost the match") and literary contexts where it may carry metaphorical weight (loss, fading, erasure). Because of its range of meanings and straightforward roots, it is a common and productive element in Finnish vocabulary, used in both literal and figurative expressions.