muovavat

Muovavat is the third-person plural present tense form of the Finnish verb muovata, which means "to mold", "to shape" or "to form", often with reference to materials such as clay, plastic or other malleable substances. Morphologically it consists of the root muov- (from muovi, "plastic") plus the verb-forming suffix -ata and the present plural ending -vat, yielding muovavat — "they shape" or "they mold". Pronunciation in Finnish follows regular patterns, approximately [ˈmuovavat].

The form is used in everyday speech and writing to describe ongoing or habitual actions performed by multiple agents: for example, "He muovavat veistoksia" ("They are shaping sculptures" or "They make sculptures"). It appears in various grammatical constructions, including questions, negatives (e.g., eivät muovavat -> eivät muovaa in standard negative conjugation), and subordinate clauses, and participates in aspectual distinctions when combined with temporal adverbs.

In addition to literal material-shaping senses, muovata and its conjugations can be used metaphorically to describe shaping intangible things such as policies, identities, or narratives. Related lexical items include muovi (plastic), muovaus (molding), and muovinen (made of plastic). As a non-lemma inflected form, muovavat is typically covered in Finnish grammar resources to illustrate present tense conjugation patterns and productive verb formation from nouns.