rikkaista

Rikkaista is the elative plural inflection of the Finnish adjective rikas, meaning rich. In Finnish, adjectives agree with their nouns in number and case, and rikkaista is the form used before plural nouns when the noun is in the elative case. The elative plural is used to express origin or source, roughly translating to “from the rich” or “of the rich” in context.

Usage and examples: The form appears in discussions of wealth, inequality, and demographic descriptions. For example, rikkaista ihmisistä means “from the rich people” or “the rich people,” and rikkaista maista can mean “from wealthy countries.” The word itself does not carry independent meaning beyond the grammatical relationship it expresses; it simply describes the noun it precedes.

Etymology: rikkaista is formed from the stem rikas (rich) with the standard Finnish adjective inflection, where -ista marks the elative plural.

See also: rikas, rikkaus, rikastua.