tekeillä

Tekeillä is a Finnish term that most often arises as the plural inessive form of the noun tekele. The noun tekele means a contrivance, device, or crude handiwork—generally with a nuance of something improvised or imperfect. The inessive plural tekeleillä translates roughly as “in the contrivances” or “among the makeshifts,” and it occurs in literary or descriptive contexts to reference multiple items that are makeshift or not fully refined. Because tekele carries a pejorative or humorous tone, tekeleillä tends to appear in texts evaluating everyday objects, curios, or improvised tools rather than in technical language.

In standard Finnish, tekele appears mainly in the singular tekele and in plural tekeleet; the form tekeleillä is rare and is best encountered in older texts or dialect writing. Some Finnish grammars discuss tekele as a lexical unit and note the inflected forms including tekeleillä. The more common construction to express “in preparation” or “in the works” is the fixed phrase on tekeillä; this expresses ongoing activity and is not related to the noun tekele.

The term may be encountered in dictionaries as a note on morphology, rather than as a widely used lexical item. See also tekele, on tekeillä, valmisteilla, tekijä.