Lähteminen

Lähteminen is a Finnish noun that denotes the act or process of departing, leaving a place, or beginning a journey. It is a deverbal noun formed from the verb lähteä (to depart) with the derivational suffix -minen, which creates nouns that express actions or processes. Accordingly, lähteminen roughly means “the act of leaving” or “the act of starting from a location.”

In terms of usage, lähteminen is relatively rare in everyday speech. The more common term for departure in travel or events is lähtö. Lähteminen tends to occur in linguistic, grammatical, or formal written contexts where the author discusses departure as a process rather than just a point in time. It may also appear in dictionaries or language‑learning materials to illustrate Finnish derivational morphology.

Semantically, lähteminen can convey not only the physical act of leaving a place but also the initiation of a sequence or activity—emphasizing process over a single moment. Its precise interpretation often depends on context and surrounding language.

Related terms include lähtö, which refers to a departure or a starting point, and aloitus, which more generally denotes the initiation or commencement of an action. The base verb is lähteä, from which various nouns and verbal forms are derived to express related ideas about moving, starting, or beginning.