kahdeksas

Kahdeksas is the Finnish ordinal numeral meaning “the eighth.” It is used to denote the eighth item in a sequence or to describe the position of a person or object within a set.

Etymologically, kahdeksas is derived from the cardinal kahdeksan, meaning eight, and is the standard ordinal form used in Finnish. Like other Finnish ordinals, kahdeksas is an adjective-like form that agrees with the noun it modifies in number and case.

In practice, kahdeksas appears in everyday language to label order and position. Common examples include kahdeksas kerros (the eighth floor), kahdeksas luokka (the eighth grade), or in dates such as lokakuun kahdeksas päivä (the eighth day of October). It is also used in headlines and lists to indicate ranking or sequence.

Finnish ordinals, including kahdeksas, decline to match the noun they describe across cases, numbers, and definiteness. This means that the form may appear differently depending on its syntactic role, though the base meaning remains “eighth.” For example, phrases like kahdeksannen päivän or kahdeksatta may occur in extended phrases, illustrating the broader inflection pattern of ordinal adjectives in Finnish.

See also: ordinal numbers in Finnish, list numbering, Finnish grammar.