Vyöryä

Vyöryä is a Finnish verb meaning to slide, cascade, or avalanche. It describes rapid downward movement of loose material under gravity, typically in natural settings. The term is used for various mass movement phenomena, including snow avalanches (lumivyöry), rockslides (kivivyöry), and landslides (maanvyöry). In geology and geotechnical contexts, vyöryä can refer to an event where a slope fails and material flows downslope, sometimes with significant impact on nearby terrain, infrastructure, or populations.

Linguistically, vyöryä is an intransitive verb. In present tense it appears as vyöryy, in past tense as vyöryi, and the past participle is vyörynyt. The noun vyöry denotes the avalanche, landslide, or mass movement event itself. The verb is commonly used in both literal and technical discussions, and, in figurative language, it can be employed to describe a rapid, overwhelming influx or sequence of events, though this usage is less frequent than its physical sense.

Related terms include lumivyöry (snow avalanche), kivivyöry (rockslide), and maanvyöry (landslide). These terms share the core concept of downward mass movement driven by gravity and are central in discussions of hazard assessment, risk management, and mountain geography in Finnish-language literature.