Murrosikään

Murrosikään is the illative form of the Finnish noun murrosikä, which denotes adolescence or puberty. The word expresses movement into the adolescence life stage rather than the stage itself. It is used with verbs of entering or reaching a new life phase, such as astua murrosikään (to enter adolescence) or päästä murrosikään (to reach adolescence).

Etymology and form: Murrosikä combines murros (breakthrough, puberty) with ikä (age). The illative suffix -ään yields murrosikään, meaning “into adolescence.” The form is a grammatical construction rather than a separate concept.

Usage: In descriptive writing about people undergoing puberty, you may encounter phrases like lapsi on vasta murrosikään (the child is just entering adolescence) or nuoret ovat murrosikään astumassa (the youths are stepping into adolescence). The term is primarily linguistic and general in tone, without clinical connotations.

Range and context: The onset of adolescence varies widely among individuals. Finnish usage places puberty-related changes in the early teens, but biological and social milestones differ. In educational or sociological contexts, murrosikä is treated as a developmental period marked by physical changes, identity formation, and increasing independence.

See also: murrosikä, puberteetti, kasvuiässä. In English-language discussions, the comparable concepts are adolescence and puberty.