vilpoinen

Vilpoinen is a Finnish adjective meaning deceitful or fraudulent. It is used to describe actions, statements, or persons designed to deceive others for gain. The word stems from vilppi, meaning fraud or cheating, combined with the common adjectival suffix -inen, yielding vilpoinen.

Usage in modern Finnish is relatively formal or literary; vilpoinen is less common in everyday speech, where vilpillinen is often preferred. In legal or journalistic contexts, vilpoinen may appear in discussions of deceptive practices or misleading claims, typically in compounds such as vilpoinen keino (deceptive method) or vilpoinen väite (deceptive claim).

Nuance: vilpoinen emphasizes intentional wrongdoing and exploitation, whereas synonyms like petollinen stress dishonesty in a more general sense, and harhaanjohtava stresses misdirection rather than fraud. Vilpoinen can carry a somewhat archaic or elevated tone.

See also: Finnish language, vilpillinen, petollinen, harhaanjohtaminen (misleading), vilppi (fraud).