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FINNISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tavata.

to meet (come face to face with)

6 characters3 syllables approx.Suomi language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈtɑʋɑtɑˣ/[ˈt̪ɑ̝ʋɑ̝t̪ɑ̝(ʔ)]
  1. to meet (come face to face with)

    transitive
    Tapaan hänet teatterin edessä.
  2. to meet (come together in conflict)

    transitive
    tavata vastustajansa
  3. to meet up (to meet by arrangement)

    Kun ensi kerran tulet kaupunkiin, meidän pitäisi tavata jossakin.
  4. to encounter

    transitive
    Tapasin karhun metsässä viime kesänä.
    Tavataanko niitä koko maassa?
  5. to catch, find

    transitive
    Tapasin mieheni taas baarista.
    Kun saavuin kotiin, tapasin hänet nukkumasta.
  6. to touch, meet, feel, hit, catch

    Pää tapaa jatkuvasti kattoon, kun se on niin matala.
  7. to touch, fumble

    transitive
    Kuulin oudon äänen juuri kun käteni tapasi ovenkahvaa.
Where this word comes from

From Proto-Finnic *tabat'ak, probably borrowed from Proto-Germanic *dabaną. Cognate with Ingrian tavata, Karelian tavata, Votic tavatõ, Estonian tabama, Ludian tabada, Livonian ta’bbõ (“to guess, to solve a riddle”). Alternatively, sometimes compared with Erzya тавадомс (tavadoms), Udmurt тупаны (tupany, “to fit”), Komi-Zyrian топӧдны (topödny, “to squeeze, to combine, to join”), Hungarian tapad (“to cling, stick”), tapaszt (“to stick, to plaster”).

verb/ˈtɑʋɑtɑˣ/[ˈt̪ɑ̝ʋɑ̝t̪ɑ̝(ʔ)]
  1. to have a habit (of doing something), to usually (do) (something), used to (do) (something) (past tense sense), to tend to be

    transitive
    Lapsuudessa tapasin syödä aamuisin leipää ja kaakaota.
    Meitä tavattiin kutsua onnenlinnuiksi.
Where this word comes from

Either from the same Germanic source as tavata (etymology 1) or from tapa (“custom, habit, practice”) + -ta.

verb/ˈtɑʋɑtɑˣ/[ˈt̪ɑ̝ʋɑ̝t̪ɑ̝(ʔ)]
  1. to spell (a word; to pronounce a word letter by letter or syllable by syllable)

    transitive
  2. to decipher (to read obscure or almost illegible text)

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Swedish stava (“to spell”).

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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.