kehittävä

Kehittävä is one of the Finnish adjectives and the present active participle form of the verb kehittää (to develop). It denotes something that develops, fosters development, or relates to development processes. In practice, kehittävä is used to describe actions, systems, or approaches aimed at growth or improvement, rather than to name a person.

Etymology and relation to related terms: The form is built from kehittää plus the participial suffix -vä. It is closely connected to nouns such as kehitys (development) and to kehittäjä (developer) as the agent noun referring to a person who develops something. The common word for a person who develops is kehittäjä; kehittävä is more often an attribute rather than a person.

Usage and examples: The word is frequent in formal, educational, and technical language. Examples include kehittävä oppimisympäristö (a learning environment that promotes development), kehittävä johtaminen (development-oriented leadership), and kehittävä tutkimus (developmental or development-focused research). In most cases kehittävä describes processes, practices, or objects; when referring to a person, Finnish more commonly uses kehittäjä.

Grammar and variation: kehittävä behaves as an adjective and inflects for number and case like other Finnish adjectives. The comparative form is kehittävämpi (more developmental), though in many contexts speakers choose phrasing that avoids a dense comparative construction. The superlative kehittävin is rare and uncommon in everyday language.

See also: Other related Finnish terms include kehittäjä, kehittäminen, and kehitys. These words form part of a family related to growth, improvement, and development-oriented concepts in Finnish.