Ruutuja

Ruutuja is the plural form of the Finnish noun ruutu, a word with several related but distinct meanings in Finnish. The most common senses are a square or cell in a grid, a frame or shot in film or video, and the diamond suit in playing cards. The form ruutuja is used when referring to multiple instances of any of these senses.

In geometric and grid-related contexts, ruutu denotes a single square or cell within a larger arrangement, such as a chessboard, a spreadsheet, a map, or a checkered pattern. Ruutuja therefore refers to several such squares or cells. In digital imaging and video, ruutu can also mean a frame or still image in a sequence; ruutuja would then indicate multiple frames.

In card games, ruutu is the name of the diamond suit (the red suit). In this sense, ruutuja means the diamonds as a group, for example when discussing the suit in a hand or a deck. The distinction between ruutu as a shape, a frame, or a suit is usually clear from context in Finnish.

Beyond these core senses, ruutu can be used more broadly to describe any grid-like or checkered pattern, or informally to refer to square segments on a user interface or display. The word is common in everyday Finnish, while Pikseli remains the precise technical term for a digital image element; ruutu is more often used in reference to frames or grid units.