hauraantua

Hauraantua is a Finnish verb meaning to become brittle, to crumble, or to degrade due to stress or aging. The sense covers physical materials, such as stone or wood that lose integrity, and figurative cases in which a plan, reputation, or system deteriorates under pressure. The form is intransitive; it denotes a change of state rather than a deliberate action by an agent.

Etymology: Hauraantua is built from a stem haura- (related to the idea of being brittle) combined with the infinitive/change-of-state suffix -ntua, a pattern found in several Finnish intransitive verbs. The exact historical origins are uncertain, but the term appears in older Finnish and in literary usage.

Usage: In standard Finnish, hauraantua is most common in descriptive contexts about deterioration. It is less common in everyday speech and may appear in literary writing or technical descriptions of materials, aging, or stress.

Examples: The stone hauraantuu over decades of freeze-thaw cycles; the wooden beam hauraantuu under persistent dampness. Metaphorically, a plan or institution can hauraantua under prolonged political pressure.

Variants: The past participle hauraantunut describes something that has become brittle; hauraantuminen denotes the process of becoming brittle.