epäluotettavat

Epäluotettavat is Finnish for unreliable or not trustworthy and serves as the plural form of the adjective epäluotettava. The word can function as a modifier, as in epäluotavat lähteet (unreliable sources), or predicatively with a copula, as in Nämä tiedot ovat epäluotettavat (These data are unreliable). It is formed from the negation prefix epä- attached to luotettava (trustworthy), following standard Finnish adjective formation and the plural ending -vat/-vät in nominative.

Common usage covers information quality, journalism, research, and everyday language. Epäluotettavat describes things or people that lack trustworthiness or are subject to doubt. Notable collocations include epäluotettavat lähteet, epäluotettavat tiedot, epäluotettavat väitteet and, less frequently, epäluotavat henkilöt. In practice, the term signals that the reliability of the referenced item is questionable, without necessarily specifying the exact degree of unreliability.

Etymologically, epäluotettava derives from epä- (not) and luotettava (trustworthy); the related noun form to discuss the concept of unreliability is epäluotettavuus. Finnish distinguishes between describing something as epäluotettava and using epäluotettavat as a plural attribute, allowing both attributive and predicative uses depending on sentence structure.

In summary, epäluotettavat functions as a usable Finnish descriptor for multiple unreliable items or entities, employed across contexts where trustworthiness and evidence are in question. See also luotettavuus and epäluotettavuus for related concepts of reliability and unreliability.