Juhtivaid

Juhtivaid is an Estonian grammatical form derived from the adjective juhiv, meaning "leading," "guiding," or "principal." The word juhtivaid specifically represents the partitive plural form of the adjective and is used to modify nouns in the partitive case. In Estonian, adjectives agree with the noun they describe in number, case, and, to some extent, gender, and juhtivaid is the form that signals an indefinite quantity or a non-specific subset within a larger group.

In usage, juhtivaid is commonly employed to characterize people, organizations, ideas, or roles that are prominent within a field. Examples include phrases like juhtivaid teadlasi (leading scientists), juhtivaid ettevõtteid (leading companies), or juhtivaid ideid (leading ideas). The construction often appears in journalistic, academic, or formal descriptions where prominence or influence is being highlighted without naming particular individuals or entities.

Etymologically, juhtivaid comes from the verb juhtima (to lead) and the base adjective juhiv (leading). It is related to other forms such as juhitav (leadable) or juhid (leaders) but functions primarily as a grammatical modifier rather than a stand-alone noun. Because Estonian uses inflection to convey grammatical relationships, juhtivaid conveys its meaning through its form rather than through a fixed lexical item.

Overall, juhtivaid serves as a common attributive form in Estonian to indicate leading status across diverse domains, translating roughly to “leading” or “top” in English, depending on context.