Pidätettyjä

Pidätettyjä is the plural partitive form of pidätetty, the past passive participle of pidättää, meaning “detained” or “arrested.” In Finnish, pidätettyjä refers to people who have been detained by authorities and is commonly used in legal, police, and news contexts. It functions like a noun phrase referring to detainees, and it contrasts with pidätetyt, the nominative plural adjective form that would modify a noun directly (pidätetyt henkilöt = detained persons).

The plural partitive pidätettyjä appears when the detainees are the object of a verb or when expressing an indefinite quantity, such as useita pidätettyjä (several detainees). With numerals, Finnish often uses different endings: kolme pidätettyä means three detainees (partitive singular), while useita pidätettyjä is used for an indeterminate larger number.

Common contexts include police reports and court records, where phrases like useita pidätettyjä siirrettiin tutkintavankilaan or useita pidätettyjä otettiin kuulusteluun illustrate its usage. The term can also occur in journalistic prose to summarize groups of detainees without naming individuals.

Etymology: pidätettyjä is formed from the verb pidättää plus the past passive participle pidätetty, with -jä marking the plural partitive form. This form enables a generic, non-specific reference to detained people in ongoing or reported situations.