tilapäiseen

Tilapäinen is a Finnish adjective meaning temporary or provisional. It is used to describe conditions, arrangements, or objects that are not permanent and are expected to last for a short time. The word tilapäiseen is a specific grammatical form of tilapäinen: it is the illative singular form, used when modifying a noun in the illative case, indicating movement into or toward a temporary state or situation.

In everyday language tilapäinen often appears in contexts such as work, arrangements, or solutions that are not intended to be permanent. For example, tilapäinen ratkaisu refers to a temporary solution, and tilapäiseen työhön or tilapäiseen ratkaisuun can be used with verbs or prepositions that require the illative case. The nuance of tilapäinen is that the described situation is expected to be short-lived or transitional, rather than indefinite.

Grammatically, tilapäinen inflects like other Finnish adjectives. The illative singular form tilapäiseen accompanies singular nouns in illative constructions, while plural forms would appear as tilapäisiin in corresponding illative plural phrases. Adverbial form is tilapäisesti, meaning “temporarily,” used to modify verbs.

Related terms include väliaikainen, which is another common synonym for temporary but carries its own stylistic nuance. While tilapäinen emphasizes short duration, väliaikainen can sometimes imply an intermediate stage with a more formal or planned temporary status. In Finnish prose, tilapäiseen often appears in discussions of policies, projects, or services that are intended to be temporary rather than permanent.