tosissaan

Finnish

Etymology

The inessive plural of tosi (tosissa) with a possessive suffix.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtosisːɑːn/, [ˈt̪o̞s̠is̠ːɑ̝ːn]
• Rhymes: -osisːɑːn
• Syllabification^(key): to‧sis‧saan

Adverb

tosissaan

1. serious(ly), in earnest (about = genitive + suhteen)

   Olen tosissani tämän suhteen.

   I am serious about this. / I mean it/business. / I'm not fooling around.

Usage notes

This adverb can be used predicatively with olla (“to be”); it can be used as an adjective in other positions (such as attributively) by using oleva. Like many other similar adverbs, it is inflected by person in standard Finnish, but in spoken colloquial Finnish, it often appears in the third-person form even when referring to the speaker or interlocutor: Olen tosissani and Olen tosissaan are both possible but the latter is considered nonstandard; likewise Ootsä tosissas? and Ootsä tosissaan? (“Are you serious?”)

Inflection

Personal/possessive forms of tosissaan
no possessor	—
possessor	singular	plural
1st person	tosissani	tosissamme
2nd person	tosissasi	tosissanne
3rd person	tosissaan tosissansa

Synonyms

• (seriously, in earnest): kunnolla, vakavissaan

Further reading

• “tosissaan”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03

Anagrams

• nastoissa