Kompleksisen

Kompleksisen is the genitive singular form of the Finnish adjective kompleksinen, which translates roughly as “complex” in English. It is used to describe something that has multiple components, parts, or factors, or that is intricate and not straightforward. In everyday language the base form kompleksinen is more common, while kompleksisen appears specifically where the adjective modifies a noun in the genitive case.

Etymology and usage context: kompleksinen derives from the noun kompleks (a complex), which in turn is a loanword adopted into Finnish from European languages, often related to Latin-based terms through Swedish or other neighboring languages. The -inen ending is a productive adjective suffix in Finnish, and kompleksinen is widely used in technical, scientific, or formal discourse to convey multi-part structure or composedness.

Grammatical note: Finnish adjectives decline to agree with the noun they modify in number and case. Therefore kompleksisen is the correct form when the noun is in the genitive singular, as in kompleksisen ongelman (of a complex problem). The corresponding base form is kompleksinen, and other forms such as partitive would be kompleksista, depending on the noun’s case. This pattern is common for adjectives ending in -nen in Finnish.

Usage considerations: In everyday Finnish, synonyms like monimutkainen are often preferred for “complex” in general contexts, whereas kompleksinen emphasizes a multi-component or systematically integrated complexity, especially in technical or analytical writing. The term also appears in phrases describing complex systems, mechanisms, or theories.

See also: kompleks (noun), kompleksinen (adjective), monimutkainen.