kadottivat

Kadottivat is a Finnish verb form meaning “they lost” or “they misplaced (something).” It is the third-person plural past tense (indikatiivin imperfekti) of the verb kadottaa, which conveys the act of losing or misplacing an item. The form is used when the subject of the sentence is plural and the action occurred in the past.

In usage, kadottivat is transitive and typically takes a definite object in a possessive or genitive form, referring to what was lost. For example: He kadottivat avaimensa. They lost their keys. Opiskelijat kadottivat reppunsa. The students lost their backpacks. Finnish word order is flexible, but the object commonly appears after the verb.

Grammatically, kadottivat is built from the stem kadott- plus the past tense plural ending -ivat, which follows Finnish vowel harmony rules. The corresponding singular past forms are kadotti (he/she lost) and kadotin (I lost).

Etymology and related forms: kadottaa is the base verb meaning “to lose” or “to cause to lose” in everyday usage, with kadottaminen meaning “losing” or “misplacing.” Related nouns include kadotus (loss, disappearance) and kadottaminen (the act of losing). The form kadottivat is one of several verb forms used to express past actions by multiple subjects in Finnish.

See also: kadottaa, kadottaminen, kadotus.