Oikeanpuoleinen

Oikeanpuoleinen is a Finnish adjective meaning on the right side or right-sided. It is formed from the words oikea, meaning right, and puolinen, a suffix used to describe a characteristic or orientation. The term is used to indicate the location or side of a person, object, or region, and it can modify a noun (for example, oikeanpuoleinen keuhko, the right lung) or be used predicatively in appropriate contexts.

In practice, oikeanpuoleinen describes spatial relation rather than handedness. For the latter concept Finnish typically uses oikeakätinen to refer to a right-handed person. Oikeanpuoleinen is common in anatomical, medical, and technical language to specify which side of the body or a structure is being discussed, as well as when describing sides of objects, surfaces, or geographical areas.

The word is a closed compound, written as one word, and it follows standard Finnish inflection rules. Its plural form is oikeanpuoleiset, and genitive is oikeanpuolisesta or oikeanpuoleisen, depending on the sentence structure. Related terms include vasenpuolinen for left-sided and phrases such as on oikealla puolella to describe “on the right side” in more general, non-compound usage.

Overall, oikeanpuoleinen serves as a precise descriptor of right-side orientation in Finnish, distinct from terms denoting handedness and from more general directional expressions.