Petokselle

Petokselle is the allative form of the Finnish noun petos, which means fraud or deception. The allative case in Finnish, marked by the suffix -lle, indicates direction toward a place, person, or abstract target. Therefore petokselle can be read as “to fraud” or “towards fraud.” In practice, this form is rarely used in everyday language and is more commonly encountered in linguistic discussions about Finnish case endings or in very formal or historical texts that illustrate the allative.

In standard Finnish legal or everyday usage, other constructions are preferred to refer to fraud as an offense. The common expression for the offense is petos in its various cases, for example petokseen syyllistyminen meaning “being guilty of fraud.” The allative form petokselle does not denote a specific, standalone legal act; rather, it functions as a grammatical illustration of the Finnish case system and is not a widely used lexical item in ordinary discourse.

Etymology: petokselle is derived from the noun petos (fraud) plus the allative suffix -lle. This reflects Finnish morphology, in which nouns can take different cases to express relationships such as direction, target, or recipient.

See also: Finnish language, Finnish grammar, Petos, Rikoslaki.