# dead, alive



## solanum-tuberosum

Hei!

I'm trying to work out the difference between words that mean "alive" - elävä, elollinen and "dead" - kuollut, eloton, hengetön. Are they synonyms, or am I being deceived by dictionaries? Can you shed light on their usage and combinability? And maybe there are some other words that I haven't mentioned?

Thanks in advance


----------



## Spongiformi

_"Elävä_" is something that is living, alive. Opposite is _"kuollut_".
_"Kuollut"_ is something that was alive, but is now dead. Opposite is _"elävä_".

_"Elollinen"_ is something that possesses or possessed life, biological. "_Elollinen luonto_" is the biological part of nature, as opposed to the geological part like rocks and such (_"eloton"_).
_"Eloton" _is something that doesn't possess life. It never might have been alive if referring to abiotic things.

_"Hengetön" _basically means dead, _"kuollut"_.
_"Hengissä"_ means a person/animal is still alive. ("_Hengellinen_" means spiritual, however.)

These words can't be used as perfect synonyms, but sometimes they can be used in such a manner. _"Elollinen" _is not a good word to describe whether someone is still alive. However, _"eloton" _is not impossible to use to describe dead people/animals: _"Uhrit vaikuttivat elottomilta_" "The victims seemed lifeless." Technically _"kuollut" _should require that the thing under observation was previously alive and thus could die, but it's not quite as strict in practice (like the saying goes: "_Kuollut kuin kivi_").


----------



## solanum-tuberosum

Thank you very much!

By the way, could you please tell me what's the translation of phrases "intravital monument" as in the sentence "Recently, Hawking colleagues decided to put him intravital monument on the territory of Cambridge University." and "living will" as in the sentence "With a copy of her husband’s living will in her purse, she tried to determine whether there was any hope for his recovery."? For example, in Chinese the word that means "living" is used in both sentences, and in English (as you can see) -- only in the second one.

Also I'm really interested in some finnish metaphors and collocations with these words, but they are really difficult to find in dictionaries and in the Internet. Maybe there are some interesting and not trivial metaphors that come to your mind? Like "Living Stone" or "dead colour" in English.


----------



## Gavril

solanum-tuberosum said:


> "living will" as in the sentence "With a copy of her husband’s living will in her purse, she tried to determine whether there was any hope for his recovery."?



This can be translated _hoitotestamentti_ ("care" + "will, testament") or _hoitotahto_ ("care" + "will"), according to my dictionary.



> Also I'm really interested in some finnish metaphors and collocations with these words, but they are really difficult to find in dictionaries and in the Internet. Maybe there are some interesting and not trivial metaphors that come to your mind? Like "Living Stone" or "dead colour" in English.



_elää_ "to live" is the basis of derived words like _*ele*_ "gesture", _*eläke*_ "pension" and _*elämys*_ "experience (that leaves a strong impression)". The idea of "living" is present in all these, but the semantics of the derivations aren't entirely transparent.

_kuolla_ "die" is the basis of _*kuolettaa*_, whose transparent meaning is "to kill, to make die", but which can also mean "to pay off (debt), cancel (a bank card, etc.)"; also, _*kuolla*_ itself can mean "to be out" (in sports such as baseball).


----------

