sekunteihin

Sekunteihin is the illative plural form of the Finnish noun sekunti, meaning seconds. In Finnish, the illative case marks direction toward something or entering into a state, and the plural illative is formed by adding the appropriate ending to the plural stem. Therefore sekunteihin literally conveys “into seconds” or “to the seconds,” and it is used when referring to movement into or inclusion within multiple seconds in a formal or technical context.

The word sekunti itself denotes a unit of time equal to one sixtieth of a minute. It is a native Finnish term that was borrowed into Finnish from other European languages; its etymology traces back to the word sekund in Swedish and further to Latin secundus, with related forms appearing across many languages to represent the same temporal unit.

Sekunteihin is relatively rare in everyday spoken Finnish. The illative plural form is more commonly encountered in written, technical, or descriptive prose that treats time intervals as discrete seconds. In ordinary speech, speakers more often use other constructions to describe time spans, such as several seconds (useita sekunteja) or for several seconds (useiden sekuntien ajan).

Understanding sekunteihin also involves recognizing Finnish noun inflection patterns, where illative plural endings like -ihin attach to the plural stem sekunte-, producing forms that can indicate nuanced temporal direction in formal contexts.