syttynyt

Syttynyt is a Finnish adjective meaning ignited or having caught fire. It is formed from the intransitive verb syttyä, “to catch fire” or “to ignite,” with the common past participle/adjective suffix -nyt. The word describes a state that has arisen as a result of burning, rather than the act of lighting itself.

In usage, syttynyt typically describes something that has already begun to burn or has lit up on its own. It is more common in written or formal language and in compound tenses to express a resulting state. In everyday speech, the simple past form syttyi is often used when reporting that a fire began. As an attributive or predicative adjective, syttynyt agrees with the noun it modifies in number and case, for example in inflected phrases like syttyneen tulipalon (of the fire that started).

Syntactic note: as a participial adjective, syttynyt is used to characterize nouns in ways similar to other Finnish participles. It is distinct from sytytetty, which denotes something lit by someone or something, and from the causative sytyttää, meaning “to light” or “to ignite.”

See also: syttyä, sytyttää, tulipalo.