estämään

Estämään is a Finnish verb form meaning to prevent, to stop, or to hinder. It is the -maan/-mään infinitive form of the verb estää and is used to express purpose or intention, as well as to describe actions taken to prevent a result. As a non-finite form, estämään does not conjugate for person or number and appears in sentences together with auxiliary verbs or in purpose clauses.

In practice, estämään is commonly used to indicate preventive actions. For example, tapaturmien estämiseksi käytetään suojavarusteita, meaning that protective gear is used to prevent accidents. Another typical use is in sentences like Hän yrittää estää rikollisuuden kasvua, which means he tries to prevent the growth of crime. The form is often found in formal or instructional texts that discuss safety, prevention measures, or policies.

Estämään can also connect to other verbs to indicate purposes of actions already described, similar to how English uses “to prevent” in phrases like “to prevent problems.” It remains a broad and useful verb form within Finnish, sharing its core meaning with other inflected forms of estää. Its precise syntactic role depends on the surrounding clause, but its essential function is to convey preventive intent or outcome.