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FINNISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

olla.

to be (indicating that the subject and the complement of the verb form the same thing, or that the complement describes the subject)

4 characters2 syllables approx.Suomi language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈolːɑˣ/[ˈo̞lːɑ̝(ʔ)]
  1. to be (indicating that the subject and the complement of the verb form the same thing, or that the complement describes the subject)

    copulative
    Olen onnellinen.
    Minä olen lääkäri.
  2. to be (occupy a place, possibly abstractly for an action)

    intransitive
    olla kalassa
    Minä olen kotona.
  3. to be, constitute, make up, form

    copulative
    Tuo on maanpetos.
  4. to have; to own, to possess

    impersonal · intransitive · with-adessive
    Minulla on kissa.
    Minulla on ollut kissa.
  5. to have, to possess (as a feature or capability, as opposed to simple possession; almost always for inanimate subjects)

    intransitive
    Tässä autossa on kaikki lisävarusteet.
  6. to have (a sensation)

    impersonal · intransitive · with-adessive · with-genitive
    Minulla on nälkä. / Minun on nälkä.
  7. (there) be

    impersonal · intransitive
    Pöydällä on kissa.
    Pöydällä ei ole kissaa.
  8. (there) be synonym of olla olemassa (“to exist”)

    impersonal · intransitive
    Ei rakkautta ole.
  9. to behave, act (as if...) (followed by a essive plural form of a present active participle with a possessive suffix, a long first infinitive (most often with some verbs), or a subordinate clause beginning with (ikään,) kuin, requiring conditional mood)

    intransitive
    Hän oli (ikään), kuin ei olisi huomannut mitään.
    Hän ei ollut huomaavinaan mitään.
  10. to have (used together with a past participle to build perfect and pluperfect tenses)

    auxiliary
    Olen jo syönyt tänään.
    Olemme jo syöneet tänään.
  11. used together with a present participle to build the present and past prospective tenses.

    auxiliary · literary
  12. to have to, must; be obliged/forced to

    impersonal · intransitive · with-genitive
    Minun on nyt mentävä.
    Minun on palautettava kirja kirjastoon perjantaihin mennessä.
  13. to result in (with inanimate, abstract objects)

    impersonal · with-elative
    Siitä ei ole (mitään) hyötyä.
    Sinusta ei ole apua.
  14. to be suited for, be capable of, be made for, be cut out for

    impersonal · with-elative
    Ei hänestä ole johtajaksi.
    Minusta ei ole siihen.
  15. to behave (properly) (e.g. of children)

    intransitive
  16. to play a children's game

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Most forms derive from Proto-Finnic *oldak (compare Estonian olema), from Proto-Uralic *wole- / *ole- (compare Moksha улемс (ulems), Eastern Mari улаш (ulaš), Udmurt вань (vań), Northern Khanty вөԓты (wøłty), Hungarian van, volt, and possibly Tundra Nenets ӈэсь (ŋesʹ°)); see the Proto-Uralic entry for more. The forms on and ovat are irregular, with cognates found throughout Finnic, including Karelian on, Livonian um, Veps om, Votic on, Võro om/um and ommaq/ummaq. on derives from earlier *om, probably from an earlier *oma; ovat in turn is originally from this form with the plural suffix -t attached, and has only later been reanalyzed as containing the standard third-person plural ending -vat. *wole- / *ole- could further be a frequentative derived from a monosyllabic root *wo- / *o-, with this root also emerging in another derivative: oma (“own”). However, the alternative is to posit an irregular loss of -l- in the third-person forms due to it being such a common function word. The potential forms (lie-) derive from Proto-Finnic *leedäk (compare Karelian lienöy, Livonian līdõ, Veps lindä), from *le- (“to become”) (compare Northern Sami leat, Erzya левкс (levks, “young of an animal”), Erzya летемс (letems, “must, have to”), Eastern Mari лияш (ĺijaš), Komi-Zyrian лоны (lony), Hungarian lenni/lesz), probably from earlier Proto-Uralic *lewɜ-.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.