kipeä

Kipeä is an adjective in Finnish that describes states of ill health or pain. It is used for both general wellbeing and specific body sensations, indicating that someone feels sick or that a part of the body hurts. The sense can cover temporary illnesses, injuries, and mild discomfort as well as more persistent pain.

In everyday use, kipeä typically accompanies nouns referring to bodily parts or health. For example, kurkku can be kipeä (a sore throat) and polvi can be kipeä (a hurting knee). When describing a person’s overall condition, one can say that someone onni on kipeä or että hän on kipeä. Common constructions include Minulla on kipeä kurkku (I have a sore throat) and Hän on kipeä (She/He is sick). The form is also used in phrases like Hän oli kipeä eilen (He/She was sick yesterday).

Kipeä is closely related to sairaus (illness) and kipu (pain). It emphasizes the sensation or condition rather than a diagnosis, and its usage spans medical, everyday, and informal speech. The word can take comparative forms to express greater severity, such as kipeämpi, and superlative forms in appropriate contexts, though these are used less frequently in casual speech.

Etymology is rooted in Finnish vocabulary and reflects the concept of pain or discomfort common across Finnic languages. As a common descriptive term, kipeä appears in medical notes, personal conversation, and media, making it one of the core words for discussing health and bodily feelings in Finnish.