elu

‘life’ · runosong lemma · Estonian noun

English gloss	life
Part of speech	noun
Language	Estonian
Total occurrences	4,866
By corpus	SKVR 0, JR 0, KR 0, ERAB 4,866

The counts in this table cover all attested spellings of this lemma, not only the headword form; all are word occurrences, except the KR figure in the By corpus row, which counts poems and is not part of the total.

Full dictionary entry · Search in the corpus · Geographic distribution

Attested wordforms

elu, elo, ello, elus, eluks, ellu, ellekene, elusse, elde, elust, elost, elule, elun, elult, elü, ellü, elud, elul, elile, ellikusse, elüle, ellidelle, eluna, ellile, ellule, eluksi, eluta, elole, eluse, elläst, elokest, ellilla, eluga, elukse, elukõst, ellud, eloda, elokõst, elup, elluke … and 37 more of 77 attested forms

In Estonian dictionaries

Definitions are shown in Estonian: the source dictionaries are Estonian-language works.

EKSS

elu · 11

1. mateeria liikumise eri vorm tema arengu teataval astmel
2. inimese, looma ja taime füsioloogiline seisund sünnist surmani
3. (päevast päeva toimuv) olemine, eksisteerimine, elamiseks oleva aja möödasaatmine
4. kellegi eksisteerimise periood, iga

EMS

elu

elusolu
bioloogiline eksistents; eluvõime;
(hrl inimese) surematu osa, hing;
(usu seisukohalt)

(+34)

elu-

elus olev, elav
ellujäetav; elusalt säilitatav
elamiseks määratud

Idamurre

elu

elamu

Moistatuste

elu

ka: maja, hoone v. hoone osa, ehitis

Sources: EKSS — Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut (CC BY 4.0) · EMS — Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut · Idamurde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut · Mõistatuste murdesõnad

English words in the AI translations

How often the AI analysis used each English word when it translated the uses of this word. Forms of one English word are counted together, and one translation can contain several words, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.

English word	Uses	Share
life (life's, lives)	3,846	92.2%
alive	131	3.1%
elu	28	0.7%
dear	25	0.6%
yesterday	24	0.6%
living (livings)	19	0.5%
little	18	0.4%
live (lived)	14	0.3%
dwelling (dwellings)	11	0.3%
ellu	11	0.3%
Uses counted	4,173

Example verses

elu ilma veere pääle (AES, MT 34, 4) read in context
On the rim of the living world,
ku saassi viil nätä neio elo (AES, MT 40, 6 (8)) read in context
When I still glimpsed the maiden's life,
kuri um iks minijä elo (AES, MT 40, 22 (28)) read in context
vellekene ellekene (AES, MT 44, 3) read in context
Dear brother, dear living one
sedald sa elun ihalõnu (AES, MT 63, 1/2) read in context
This is life's yearned-for one,
elgib kui elus tuluke (AES, MT 76, 8/9 (1)) read in context
flickers like a living ember,
suile elu rohtu maitseb (AES, MT 76, 11/12 (3)) read in context
life's grass tastes sweet to swine,
naeseta elo näljäelo (AES, MT 88, 30) read in context
A life without a woman is a life of hunger:

Companion words

Words that co-occur with this lemma inside the same verse line more often than chance predicts, ranked by log-likelihood (G²) over verse-level co-occurrence in SKVR, KR, JR and ERAB; only pairs seen at least 3 times.

Word	Association (G²)	Co-occurrences
elama	1,408	323
aeg	907	219
ilus	411	130
igavene	378	55
hea	354	117
ilma	280	119
ora	275	44
einakaar	260	28

Song types

Song types of the poems attesting this lemma, as catalogued per poem in the source corpora (ERAB type names are in Estonian, SKVR names in Finnish; JR and KR poems carry no song-type record).

Song type	Poems
Imelik maja	83
Neiu linn	71
Lunastatav neiu	59
Isa- ja mehekodus	52
Tuule tuba	51
Ema haual	46
Tule mulle!	46
Tule mulle	41

Collection places

Where the poems attesting this lemma were collected; each count is the number of attesting poems recorded at that place.

Place	Poems
Setumaa	246
Karksi	93
Viljandi	70
Haljala	68
Kolga-Jaani	64
Paistu	63
Urvaste	63
Kuusalu	62
Hargla	59
Räpina	56

Attestation over time

Poems attesting this lemma by decade of collection or publication; undated poems are not shown.

Decade	Poems
1820–1829	11
1830–1839	1
1840–1849	2
1850–1859	3
1860–1869	23
1870–1879	182
1880–1889	461
1890–1899	565
1900–1909	168
1910–1919	166
1920–1929	207
1930–1939	358
1940–1949	37

Collectors

The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.

Collector	Poems
Karl Voldemar Rosenstrauch	55
Karl Viljak	46
koguja teadmata	45
Hans Leoke	42
Joosep Hurt	41

Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 2,346)

ERAB: AES, MT 34, 4, AES, MT 40, 6 (8), AES, MT 40, 22 (28), AES, MT 44, 3, AES, MT 63, 1/2, AES, MT 76, 8/9 (1), AES, MT 76, 11/12 (3), AES, MT 88, 30, AES, MT 99, 8/10, AES, MT 145, 1/12, AES, MT 163, 3/4 (2), AES, MT 200, 63/4, AES, MT 205, 36/7, AES, MT 236, 36, AES, MT 236, 40, AES, MT 236, 41, AES, MT 236, 59/60, AES, MT 257, 8/10, AES, MT 257, 23/5, AES, MT 262, 30/1, ARS 2, 281 (48), E A 9 (13), E A 21/2 (5), E A 47/8 (88), E A 115 (185), E A 166/9 (8), E A 213/4 (10), E A 413/9 (2), E A 471/2 (2), E A 477/81 (2), E A 484/8, E A 487/9, E A 501/3, E A 505/6, E A 507/10, E A 523/6, E A 527/30, E A 532/4, E A 535/8, E A 539, E A 573/4 (35), E A 689 (8), E A 728/30 (4), E A 775/6 (7), E A 807 (1), E A 820/2 (2), E A 896/7 (21), E A 965/6 (5), E A 967/9 (7), E A 1003/4 (4), E A 1061/4, E A 1065, EKmS 4° 1, 136/7 (210), EKmS 4° 1, 277/83, EKmS 4° 1, 425/6 (30), EKmS 4° 1, 482/3 (26), EKmS 4° 2, 219/20 (1), EKmS 4° 2, 224 (4b), EKmS 4° 2, 341/2 (52), EKmS 4° 2, 353/4 (64)

Related lemmas

Finnish cognate: elo

← elama elää →

About this profile

The counts and examples on this page come from the lemmatized text of four Finnic runosong corpora: SKVR, JR, KR and ERAB. The table of English words comes from an AI analysis of the corpus; song types, collection places, collectors and dates follow each poem's own catalogue record.

The table of English words is counted from the translations kept in the AI analysis files, which hold only the most frequent translations of each word or spelling, so rare translations can be missing. Words that carry only grammar (such as the, to or didn’t) are left out, and so are English words used fewer than 5 times or in less than 0.1% of the uses counted. The analysis files can group two closely related words, which then show the same table.

Verses are found by the spellings listed above, so an occasional verse may show a different word spelled the same way.