laitettiin

Laitettiin is the Finnish passive past tense form of the verb laittaa, meaning to put, place, lay, or prepare. It expresses that something was put or set somewhere, without specifying who performed the action. In Finnish, passive forms do not indicate person; the agent is often omitted and understood from context. The suffix -tiin marks the past tense in the passive, and with a root ending in -tt-, the form remains laitettiin (as in laittaa → laitettiin).

The form is commonly used in descriptive prose, recipes, manuals, and news reports to describe completed steps in a sequence. It can describe actions performed on objects or in environments, sometimes implying a general, unspecified actor. The present passive is laitetaan, while the corresponding past perfect passive is ollut laitettu.

Examples:

- Ruoka laitettiin pöydälle. (The food was placed on the table.)

- Leivät laitettiin uuniin. (The bread was put into the oven.)

- Televisio laitettiin päälle juuri ennen ohjelman alkua. (The TV was turned on just before the program started.)

- Vaatteet laitettiin kuivumaan. (The clothes were set out to dry.)

Related forms include the present passive laitetaan and the past participle laitettu, used in compound tenses or as an adjective. Laitettiin is therefore a common, neutral way to report a completed action in which the agent is either unknown, unimportant, or intentionally omitted. It sits within the broader laittaa-verb family, which covers putting, placing, and preparing across various contexts.