Kädessään

Kädessään is a Finnish grammatical form that conveys “in (his/her/its) hand” or, more broadly, “in (someone’s) possession or control.” It is built from the noun käsi (hand) in the inessive form kädessä, with the third-person possessive suffix -änsä, producing kädessään. The construction thus encodes both a locational sense (something being in the person’s hand) and a sense of ownership or control.

In use, kädessään commonly appears in contexts describing physical placement or handling of objects, as well as in figurative expressions of control or responsibility. For example, it can indicate that an item is literally in someone’s hand or within their reach. Metaphorically, it emphasizes that power, responsibility, or influence rests with the person referred to by the suffix. Finnish speakers may also use related forms such as kädessä (in the hand) and käsissään (in his/her/their hands) to signal singular versus plural ownership and to differentiate locative from possessive nuances. The exact form chosen depends on number, person, and the intended nuance.

Grammatically, kädessään illustrates how Finnish combines case endings with possessive suffixes to create integrated expressions of location and ownership. It sits within the broader system of noun inflection that marks inessive case and third-person possessive, and it is part of standard written Finnish as well as everyday speech.