Pyyhitään

Pyyhitään is the present passive form of the Finnish verb pyyhkiä, meaning to wipe. In this form the action is described as being performed on the subject by an unspecified agent. Pyyhitään is used to express processes, routines, or general instructions without naming who does the wiping. It is common in manuals, signage, cleaning procedures, and descriptive passages where the actor is unknown or irrelevant.

The passive voice in Finnish allows statements about actions to be made without attributing them to a specific subject. Pyyhitään, like other present passive forms, can convey ongoing actions or general truths. Its time reference is determined by context, so it can function similarly to a present or near-future statement in everyday use. The form is typically chosen when the focus is on the result of wiping (a clean surface) rather than on the doer of the action.

Translations into English vary with context. Pyyhitään can be rendered as “is wiped,” “are wiped,” or, in some contexts, “will be wiped.” In instructions, the nuance often corresponds to a directive about what should be done to surfaces or objects.

Etymologically, pyyhitään derives from the verb pyyhkiä and the Finnish present passive morphology. It shares this characteristic with other passive forms such as pestään (is washed) and puhdistetaan (is cleaned), illustrating the general mechanism by which Finnish indicates agentless actions performed on a patient noun.