Terveellä

Terveellä is the adessive singular form of the Finnish adjective terve, meaning healthy or in good condition. It is used with nouns in the adessive case to express a state, condition, or basis, often in idiomatic phrases. In everyday language, terveellä is most commonly found inside fixed expressions rather than as a plain predicate.

Grammatical notes: Finnish adjectives agree with the nouns they describe in case and number, and terve has the adessive form terveellä (singular) and terveillä (plural). When used with a noun, terveellä describes the noun’s state or the basis on which something is built, rather than functioning as a standalone predicate. In many sentences, terve is sufficient in the nominative to describe someone’s health, e.g., Hän on terve.

Common idiomatic phrases include:

- terveellä pohjalla, meaning on a solid basis or on healthy ground.

- terveellä järjellä, meaning with common sense or sane judgment.

Other frequent collocations include phrases like terveellä jalalla, used to convey starting from a solid footing or in a grounded manner, though the exact wording can vary by context.

Examples:

- Tämä suunnitelma on terveellä pohjalla.

- Hän toimi terveellä järjellä.

Etymology: terve derives from Finnish with the basic meaning of healthy; terveellä is its inflected adessive form used in phrases describing state or basis. The word is native to Finnish and is primarily employed in figurative or evaluative contexts.

See also: terve (health), terveys, terveydentila, terveille järki (see related expressions).

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