Tarttunut

Tarttunut is the past participle form of the Finnish verb tarttua, which means to seize, grab, cling, or adhere. As a participle, tarttunut can function as a predicative form in perfect tenses with the auxiliary olla (to have) and can also be used attributively to describe something that has been grasped or attached.

In practice, tarttunut appears in sentences describing completed actions or states resulting from grabbing or sticking. Common constructions include olen tarttunut, olet tarttunut, hän on tarttunut, and similar forms in different tenses or moods. The participle can also modify a noun in contexts where the sense is that something has clung to or adhered to something else, for example, haju on tarttunut huoneeseen (“the smell has clung to the room”).

Usage notes: tarttunut shares semantic range with related forms of tarttua, including physical grabbing and figurative or persistent adhesion. It is widely used in everyday Finnish, journalistic writing, and literature to express actions of grabbing, clinging, or sticking, as well as resulting states. The word can appear in idiomatic expressions and in passive-like constructions when describing objects or situations affected by adhesion.

Translations and equivalents include “grabbed,” “seized,” “clung to,” or “stuck to,” depending on context. Related forms include tarttuva (present participle/adjective), tarttuinko (interrogative forms), and the noun tarttuminen (grabbing/adhesion).

See also: tarttua, tarttuva, tarttuminen.