sairastavat

Sairastavat is a Finnish term used to refer to people who are currently ill. It is formed from the verb sairastaa, meaning to fall ill, and the present active participle sairastava, whose plural nominative form is sairastavat. In usage, sairastavat can function as a noun meaning “the ill” or as an attributive form when describing a group of people.

Usage of sairastavat is fairly neutral but tends to be more formal or clinical. In everyday Finnish, people often say sairaat or potilaat to mean “the sick” or “patients.” Sairastavat appears more frequently in administrative language, medical statistics, research reports, or headlines.

Grammatically, sairastavat is the plural nominative form of the present participle and can be declined like other Finnish nouns/adjectives. The genitive plural is sairastavien, and the partitive plural is sairastavia. The term is used to denote a group of persons who are ill, emphasizing the ongoing state rather than a specific diagnosis.

Examples:

- Sairastavat tarvitsevat hoitoa. (The ill need care.)

- Sairastavat eivät voi osallistua kokoukseen. (The ill cannot attend the meeting.)

In summary, sairastavat is a formal or technical way to refer to people who are currently ill in Finnish, distinct from everyday terms such as sairaat or potilaat.