Väkevät

Väkevät is the plural nominative form of the Finnish adjective väkevä, meaning strong, powerful, or vigorous. It is used to describe people, animals, objects, or abstract qualities that possess physical or moral strength, vitality, or potency. The word stems from väkevä and is closely linked to the broader Finnic semantic field of strength; cognates appear in related languages.

In Finnish grammar, adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case. Väkevät is the form used with plural nominative nouns: väkevät miehet (strong men), väkevät koirat (vigorous dogs). Other inflected forms include väkeviä (plural partitive) and väkevien (plural genitive). The same stem appears in singular forms such as väkevä (nominative singular) and väkevää (partitive singular).

In usage, väkevät can carry a literary or emphatic tone, frequently appearing in descriptions of heroes, warriors, or other figures characterized by strength or resolve. It can also describe nonhuman strength, for example väkevät juomat (strong beverages) or väkeviä rakennuksia (robust buildings) when the context makes sense.

Synonyms include vahva and voimakas; the noun form väkevyys denotes the quality of being strong. The adverbial form is väkevästi, meaning "strongly" or "powerfully."