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-ttain. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
-ttain, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
-ttain in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
-ttain you have here. The definition of the word
-ttain will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
-ttain, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Finnish
Etymology
A variant of earlier and still dialectal -ttaen, probably from *-ttaden (possibly related to Estonian -ti, -te and Votic -ttaa), re-extracted from the second infinitive instructive forms of verbs ending in -ttaa. The instructive case has distributive meanings in dialects, with such uses attested in Kalevala.
Suffix
-ttain (front vowel harmony variant -ttäin, linguistic notation -ttAin)
- Forms distributive adverbs.
- aste (“grade”) + -ttain → asteittain (“gradually”)
- päivä (“day”) + -ttain → päivittäin (“daily, every day”)
- tusina (“dozen”) + -ttain → tusinoittain (“dozens of”)
- Forms adverbs expressing manner.
- kiinalainen (“Chinese”) + -ttain → kiinalaisittain (“in a Chinese way”)
- tusina (“dozen”) + -ttain → tusinoittain (“by the dozen”)
- sivu (“page”) + -ttain → sivuittain (“page by page”)
- Forms adverbs that express position.
- pitkä (“long”) + -ttain → pitkittäin (“lengthwise”)
- loma (“gap, space in between”) + -ttain → lomittain (“interlocked”)
- sivu (“side”) + -ttain → sivuttain (“sideways”)
Usage notes
- This suffix is usually appended to the weak plural stem; see examples above.
Derived terms
Anagrams