zniszczonych

Zniszczonych is a form of the Polish adjective zniszczony, meaning destroyed or ruined. It is used to describe nouns in contexts where something has been destroyed and functions as an inflected adjective. The form zniszczonych corresponds to the genitive plural and the accusative plural of the adjective, and it appears with masculine personal nouns in plural as well as with other nouns when the phrase is in genitive or accusative plural. It is not a standalone noun; it remains an adjective whose ending changes to reflect number, gender, and case.

Etymology and morphology: zniszczonych derives from the verb zniszczyć (to destroy) with the participial suffix -ony, producing a past passive participle that serves adjectivally. In Polish, such past participles decline like adjectives, taking standard endings for plural forms in different cases.

Usage: The form is common in descriptions of multiple objects that have been destroyed. Examples include:

- zniszczonych miast (destroyed cities)

- zniszczonych domów (destroyed houses)

- zniszczonych ludzi (destroyed people; used in historical or war-related contexts)

In prose and academic writing, zniszczonych frequently appears in historical accounts, reports on damage, archaeology, or urban studies to convey the extent of destruction. Although primarily an attributive form, it can appear within larger syntactic structures where the noun it modifies is in genitive or accusative plural.

See also: zniszczyć (to destroy), zniszczenie (destruction).