tohtorin

Tohtorin is the genitive singular form of the Finnish noun tohtori, meaning doctor in the sense of a licensed medical practitioner or, more broadly, a holder of an earned medical or academic doctorate. In Finnish grammar, genitive forms are used to indicate possession, association, or attribution, and tohtorin specifically marks “of the doctor” in noun phrases.

Etymology and usage: The word tohtori originates from the Latin doctor, borrowed into Finnish through earlier Scandinavian and European linguistic contact. The genitive form tohtorin appears in phrases where the doctor is the possessor or qualifier of another noun, such as väitöskirja (doctor’s dissertation) or tutkinto (doctorate) when described in a possessive sense.

Examples:

- tohtorin väitöskirja — the doctor’s dissertation

- tohtorin nimitys — the doctor’s appointment or title

These constructions are common in academic, medical, and formal writing, and they illustrate how Finnish links a noun to its possessor using the genitive form.

Notes: Tohtori as the base word is used in everyday language to refer to a doctor or a PhD holder, depending on context. The form tohtorin is specifically the possessive/genitive carried by the noun and does not denote a separate noun with its own independent meaning beyond indicating possession or attribution within a noun phrase.

See also: tohtori, list of Finnish case forms for foreign-derived nouns.