Sairaan

Sairaan is a Finnish noun form meaning “the sick person” or “the ill.” It is the genitive singular form of the noun sairaas, which in its base nominative form is sairaas meaning a sick person. In everyday language, sairaan appears in phrases that relate to people who are ill or the care of such people.

In usage, sairaan is most commonly seen in compound words and phrases indicating relation to illness or care. For example, sairaanhoito means the care of the sick, and sairaanhoitaja refers to a nurse (the person who provides that care). The form also appears in other compounds like sairaala (hospital) and sairastua (to fall ill), showing how the root meaning of illness permeates related terms. As a genitive form, sairaan can modify nouns to express possession or association, as in sairaan hoito (care of the sick) or to describe illness-related contexts.

Related words in the same lexical field include sairaus (illness or disease) and sairastua (to become ill). These terms share the same root related to illness and health, and they illustrate how Finnish uses grammatical cases and compounds to express nuanced meaning around health and care. Etymologically, sairaan originates from the native Finnish word sairaas, tied to the broader Finnic vocabulary for ill health.