Ohdakkeille

Ohdakkeille is the allative plural form of the Finnish noun ohdake, meaning to the thistles or for the thistles. The noun ohdake refers to a group of thistle plants in the Asteraceae family, which are common, spiny wildflowers found in Finnish meadows, fields, and disturbed habitats. In standard Finnish, the nominative plural is ohdakkeet, while the allative plural is ohdakkeille.

Grammatical explanation: Finnish nouns decline for case and number, and the plural stem of ohdake is combined with the allative ending -ille to produce ohdakkeille. The allative case answers questions of direction toward a place or target, roughly corresponding to “to” or “toward” in English when referring to multiple thistles.

Botanical note: Ohdake refers to several species of thistles, typically characterized by prickly leaves and flower heads that bear purple or pink florets. In Finland, thistles are common in natural and semi-natural habitats and can be prominent in late summer fields and roadside margins. They are valued by some pollinators but are also regarded as agricultural weeds in others, depending on management practices.

Usage and interpretation: Ohdakkeille is used in sentences to indicate destination or target involving multiple thistles. For example, a sentence might translate as “We walked to the thistles,” with ohdakkeille marking the plural destination. As a grammatical form, it illustrates how Finnish encodes both plurality and directional relation in a single suffixal ending.

See also: Finnish grammar, cases, plural formation, ohdake.