Selästä

Selästä is a Finnish word formed as the elative case of selkä, meaning “from the back” or “out of the back side.” It describes origin or extraction from the rear part of something, and can refer to the back region of a person or animal as well as to the back side of an object or mechanism.

Grammatical notes: selästä is the elative form, used to indicate movement or origin from a location described by selkä. The nominative form is selkä, the inessive is selkässä (in the back), and the genitive is selän (of the back). In everyday Finnish, selästä is common in spatial and descriptive contexts, though its exact phrasing depends on what is being described.

Usage: selästä can be employed in sentences that discuss something emerging from or located at the back of something else. It is not tied to a specific domain; it can describe anatomy, parts of objects, or figurative sources. Like other elative forms, it often appears in combination with nouns or adjectives to specify the origin “from the back” in a given context.

Pronunciation: selästä is typically pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, approximately as SE-läs-tä in Finnish phonology.

Etymology and related forms: selästä is derived from the root selkä (back) plus the elative suffix -stä/-stä. Related terms include selkä (back), selkävaiva (back problem), and the broader category of Finnish noun cases (elatiivi, in Finnish grammar).

See also: selkä, Finnish grammar, noun cases, elatiivi.