Suures

Suures is a grammatical form of the Estonian adjective suur, meaning large or great. It functions as the inessive form before a singular noun, indicating a location or state “in the big …” or “in a big …” when used in phrases such as inessive case constructions.

In practical use, suures typically appears directly before the noun it modifies, with the noun carrying the corresponding inessive ending. Examples include suures majas (in the big house) and suures linnas (in the big city). The form shows agreement with the noun’s number and case: both the adjective and the noun share the inessive singular ending, producing natural, fluid Estonian phrases.

Suures is just one of several inflected forms of suur. Other forms include the nominative suur, the genitive su ü re, and the partitive suurt, each serving different grammatical functions. The existence of suures reflects Estonian’s system of agreement between adjectives and nouns across cases and numbers.

Etymologically, suures derives from the root suur with standard Estonian adjective inflection patterns. It does not function as a standalone noun; rather, it is a specific inflected variant of the adjective used in front of a noun in the inessive case.

See also: Estonian language, Estonian adjectives, Inessive case, Adjective inflection.