epäonnistuneita

Epäonnistuneita is a Finnish adjective form meaning "failed" or "unsuccessful," used to describe plural nouns. It is the partitive plural form of the past participle epäonnistunut, derived from the verb epäonnistua, which means to fail or to be unsuccessful. In usage, epäonnistuneita often appears in noun phrases such as epäonnistuneita yrityksiä (failed ventures) or epäonnistuneita suunnitelmia (unsuccessful plans).

Etymology and grammar: The word combines the negating prefix epä- with onnistu- from onnistua. The base adjective epäonnistunut yields various inflected forms; epäonnistuneita is specifically the partitive plural, used when the described items are indefinite or part of a larger indefinite set, such as "some failed X" or "failed Xs."

Usage and examples: Epäonnistuneita is common in everyday Finnish and in media when discussing failed attempts, projects, or experiments. Typical collocations include epäonnistuneita yrityksiä, epäonnistuneita kokeita (failed experiments), and epäonnistuneita suunnitelmia. It can function as an attributive adjective modifying a noun, or in predicative position with appropriate verb forms, for example with a plural subject.

Nuances and related terms: Related forms include epäonnistuminen (failure), and the related adjective epäonnistunut (the failed one) and the verb epäonnistua (to fail). The metric and case endings differ for other numbers and cases (for example, nominative plural epäonnistuneet and translative forms like epäonnistuneiksi), reflecting standard Finnish inflection patterns for participial adjectives.

See also: Finnish language, participles, negation prefixes, onnistu.