terävistä

Terävistä is the elative plural form of the Finnish adjective terävä, meaning sharp, keen, or acute. It is used to modify a plural noun in the elative case, typically to express origin or source, as in from or about sharp things or keen minds. For example, terävistä reunoista means “from sharp edges,” and terävistä mielistä can be understood as “from keen minds” in a figurative sense.

Grammatical notes: Finnish adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case. The standard nominative plural form of terävä is terävät, while the elative plural form is terävistä. When terävä describes a plural noun, the appropriate inflected form must be used to reflect the case of the noun it describes; terävistä is specifically the elative plural.

Usage considerations: terävistä is not a standalone lexical item. It functions as a grammatical form that accompanies a noun in the elative case. The elative can denote origin, movement away from something, or a source of characteristics, depending on the noun it accompanies. In everyday Finnish, terävistä tends to appear in phrases describing physical attributes (sharp edges, pointed features) or figurative sharpness (keen, perceptive traits), where the noun provides the concrete or abstract reference.

Etymology: terävä is a native Finnish adjective; terävistä is simply its inflected form in the elative plural. This reflects Finnish’s agglutinative morphology, where adjectives take on case endings to align with the noun they modify.

See also: Finnish grammar, adjectives, elative case.