aastakümnetel

Aastakümnetel is an Estonian grammatical term that denotes the adessive plural form of the noun aastakümne, meaning "decade." It is used to indicate a time span that covers multiple decades rather than a single decade, and it is commonly found in written Estonian when discussing long-term developments, history, or trends.

Formation and meaning: Aastakümne refers to a decade, and the suffix -tel marks the adessive plural, producing aastakümnetel. In sentences it functions as a temporal modifier meaning "in the decades" or "over the decades." It can stand alone or be combined with contextual phrases to specify the period, for example to refer to changes that occurred across many decades.

Usage: The term is most typical in formal, historical, or analytical writing. It helps group events, data, or phenomena that span a broad stretch of time. While numerals or named decades are often used for precision, aastakümnetel emphasizes duration and cumulative change rather than a single decade.

Etymology and related forms: The word is formed from aastakümne ("decade") with the adessive plural suffix -tel. Related terms include the singular aastakümne and other time-related phrases that describe longer-than-single-decade periods.

See also: aastakümne.

Notes: In practice, exact translations may vary with context; in English, it corresponds to "in the decades" or "over the decades." It is primarily a written, descriptive device rather than a casual conversational expression.