seinään

Seinään is the illative singular form of the Finnish noun seinä, meaning wall. It expresses movement toward the interior of a wall or direction into the wall, and is used with verbs that describe entering or penetrating the wall or placing something into it. For example, in a construction context one might say porasin reiän seinään, meaning I drilled a hole into the wall.

Grammatically, seinään is part of Finnish noun declension. The illative case marks direction toward something and answers questions like “where to?” in motion contexts. The illative singular form seinään contrasts with other cases of the same noun: seinässä (inessive, in the wall), seinällä (adessive, on the wall), seinän (genitive, of the wall), and seinää (partitive, some of the wall). The illative has a plural form as well, seiniin, meaning into the walls.

Etymology and usage notes: Seinä comes from the Finnish word for wall, with its illative form seinään following regular Finnish illative patterns. In everyday language, seinään appears mainly in technical, architectural, or carpentry contexts where something is moved into or placed inside the wall, such as drilling a hole or driving a nail into the wall. It is less common in non-technical prose outside of such contexts.

In sum, seinään is the illative singular of seinä, used to express movement into the interior of a wall, with related forms existing in other cases and in plural illative as seiniin.