kestävät

Kestävät is a Finnish word with two primary uses. It is the present tense, third-person plural form of the verb kestää, meaning to endure, withstand, or last. It is also the plural nominative form of the adjective kestävä, meaning durable or sustainable. The two forms are spelled identically but function differently in a sentence.

As a verb, kestää describes how something endures a load, time, or condition. It takes objects in the partitive case, for example: Kengät kestävät kulutusta (The shoes withstand wear). It can refer to the passage of time as in Se kestää pitkään (It lasts a long time). In everyday language it covers physical endurance, resilience to stress, and the ability to endure adverse conditions.

As an adjective, kestävä appears as kestävät when describing plural nouns, for example kestävät ratkaisut (durable solutions) or kestävät tuotteet (durable products). In sustainability discourse, kestävä is the common form in phrases like kestävä kehitys (sustainable development) and tiedon kestävä käyttö (long-term, environmentally responsible use). The plural form kestävät thus signals durability or sustainability of multiple items or concepts.

Related terms include kestävyys (durability or sustainability) and kestävä kehitys (sustainable development). The word embodies Finnish notions of endurance, durability, and long-term viability across materials, systems, and practices. In translation, kestää often corresponds to endure or last, while kestävä translates to durable or sustainable, with context guiding the precise sense.