ilMan

Ilman is a Finnish preposition meaning "without." It expresses absence or lack and is widely used in everyday speech as well as in formal writing. It introduces a noun phrase that denotes what is missing, for example: "ilman vettä" (without water) or "ilman rahaa" (without money).

Grammatically, ilman governs the following noun in the partitive case. The noun’s form signals ongoing or unspecified lack rather than a completed amount. Examples include: "Hän lähti ilman sateenvarjoa" (He left without an umbrella) and "ilman apua" (without help).

Ilman also appears in common fixed expressions, such as "ilman muuta," meaning "without a doubt" or "of course." The construction is productive across registers, from casual speech to formal prose, and it is a standard way to express absence in Finnish.

Etymology and cognates: The word is part of a family of Finnic languages and is cognate with Estonian ilma, which also means "without." The Finnish form is historically connected to a wider semantic field related to absence, with the modern sense solidified in everyday usage. The noun that follows ilman normally takes the partitive case, reinforcing the sense of ongoing lack rather than a definite quantity.

See also: ilma (air).