Peatuakse

Peatuakse is the Estonian verb form that marks the passive voice in the present tense of peatama, meaning to stop or halt. It denotes that the stopping action is performed by an unspecified agent or is described impersonally. In usage, peatuakse is common in formal or informative text, such as procedural descriptions, notices, road safety communications, and news reporting, where the doer of the action is either unknown or irrelevant.

Morphologically, peatuakse is formed by adding a standard passive suffix to the verb stem peat-, producing a present passive form. In Estonian, passive forms do not encode person or number, so peatuakse can refer to any subject. The form is typically used for general statements about stopping in a process or activity.

Peatuakse belongs to a broader set of Estonian present-passive endings, which include variants such as -akse and -takse depending on the verb class and phonology. The exact choice of ending follows phonological and historical rules of Estonian verb conjugation.

The term is primarily of grammatical interest for learners and scholars studying Estonian syntax, rather than a separate lexical item with independent meaning outside the context of the verb peatama. As with other passive forms in Estonian, peatuakse contributes to a neutral, impersonal tone in formal writing.