tuhottaa

Tuhottaa is a Finnish verb form that is generally considered nonstandard or dialectal. The standard Finnish verb meaning “to destroy” is tuhoittaa. Tuhottaa may appear in some regional speech or historical texts, but it is not part of contemporary, standard Finnish morphology.

Etymology and related forms: The underlying root is tuho, meaning destruction. The common, standard construction tuhoittaa is formed by adding the causative suffix -ittaa to the noun root tuho to express the act of destroying or devastating. Related words include tuho (destruction), tuhoaminen (destruction as a process or noun form), and tuhoisa/tuhoava (destructive). The standard passive form associated with destruction is tohtoutua or tuhoutua in other constructions, but tuhoittaa itself remains the active causative form in modern Finnish.

Usage notes: In formal writing and standard Finnish, tuhoittaa is used instead of tuhottaa. If tuhottaa appears, it is typically considered a misspelling or a nonstandard/dialectal variant, not a separate, widely recognized verb with its own conjugation in mainstream Finnish. When encountered in texts, it should be interpreted cautiously and corrected to tuhoittaa if aiming for standard language.

Examples (standard Finnish): Sodan aikana valtio tuhoitti useita rakennuksia. Tulipalot voivat tuhota koko kylän. The nonstandard form tuhottaa is not used in these standard sentences.

See also: tuho, tuhoaminen, tuhoisa, tuhoava, tuhoutua.