välivälinät

Välivälinät is a Finnish term used to describe gaps or intervals that occur between events, actions, or data points. The word is a compound of väl- meaning "between" and väli meaning "interval" or "gap," with the plural suffix -ät. Because it is not a single standardized technical term, its precise meaning is defined by the context in which it appears.

In statistics and data collection, välivälinät refer to irregular or extended time gaps between observations, which can complicate modeling, imputation, and forecasting.

In project management and scheduling, the term is used to describe planned buffers or slack time between tasks to absorb uncertainty and prevent schedule slippage.

In linguistics and phonetics, the term may denote the duration of pauses or the interval between articulatory gestures; in prosody it can reflect rhythm. In musicology, some authors use it to refer to spaces between musical events, though this is not standard.

Because of varied usage, readers should rely on the explicit definition in each source.

See also: interval, gap, buffer time, time-series irregularity.