paras

‘best; suitable’ · runosong lemma · Estonian and Finnish adjective

English gloss	best; suitable
Part of speech	adjective
Language	Estonian and Finnish
Total occurrences	7,780
By corpus	SKVR 3,144, JR 2,226, KR 261 poems, ERAB 2,410

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

paras, para, parasta, parahan, parahin, parajad, parahat, parahalla, paraja, parassa, parhaasta, parahasta, parahana, paraan, paraasta, parhaan, parast, parhaat, parahall, paraana, parajast, parahaksi, parahal, parahiksi, parhaana, parahia, parahast, paraast, parhain, parhaalla, parajal, paraat, parahikse, parain, parhaast, paraassa, paraimman, paraita, parasa, parahassa … and 213 more of 253 attested forms

In Estonian dictionaries

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

EKSS

paras · adj

1. sobiv, kohane
2. üsna suur, tugev, hea; tubli, kaunike, kenake

EMS

paras

sobiv, kohane
(substantiivselt)
(kahjurõõmu väljendamisel)
üsna suur, tugev; tubli, kenake

Idamurre

paras

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

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
good (best, best's, better)	7,359	73.7%
suitable (suitable's)	1,305	13.1%
proper	697	7.0%
fitting	146	1.5%
calf	90	0.9%
para	80	0.8%
lamb	51	0.5%
dear	41	0.4%
fine (finest)	30	0.3%
right	30	0.3%
Uses counted	9,981

Example verses

parmoizet emolta poltti (SKVR I1 20.) read in context
Burnt the mother's breasts,
takoja palan parahan (SKVR I1 21.) read in context
"the forger the finest piece."
poltti parmoizet emolda (SKVR I1 22.) read in context
Burned the mother’s veins,
pani päällähän parasta (SKVR I1 30.) read in context
Put finest on herself,
tallinna paras pasuna (AES, MT 141, 15/16) read in context
Tallinn’s finest trumpet,
vottis mu paraja labi (AES, MT 141, 37) read in context
Took my good mittens,
sie uo sinule parasa (AES MT 208, 24/7) read in context
That is your reward!
parve nied parajad neiud (AES, MT 219, 3) read in context
These proper maidens of the flock,

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
panti	5,081	465
syntyä	3,990	586
panema	3,283	1,052
pantti	2,548	249
parvi	1,779	250
aika	1,422	364
pappi	1,250	286
ennenkuin	900	183

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
Paran synnyttäminen	270
Lunastettava neito	212
Tuuti lasta nukkumaan, lapsenpiika torkkumaan	81
Myyty neito	65
Patvaskan ylistys	63
Saajannaisen ylistys	57
Varas vie koristeet	55
Kass kaevus	54

Collection places

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

Place	Poems
Narvusi	312
Vuokkiniemi	175
Soikkola	164
Suistamo	109
Kuusalu	96
Uhtua	89
Lempaala	75
Ilomantsi	72
Kaprio	61
Haljala	60

Attestation over time

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

Decade	Poems
1650–1659	1
1690–1699	17
1700–1709	10
1720–1729	1
1740–1749	1
1750–1759	9
1760–1769	7
1770–1779	10
1780–1789	21
1800–1809	2
1810–1819	32
1820–1829	60
1830–1839	262
1840–1849	343
1850–1859	310
1860–1869	68
1870–1879	234
1880–1889	912
1890–1899	828
1900–1909	497
1910–1919	458
1920–1929	276
1930–1939	775
1940–1949	101
1950–1959	102
1960–1969	100

Collectors

The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.

Collector	Poems
Elias Lönnrot	425
Volmari Porkka	200
Forsberg (Alava), Vihtori	122
D. E. D. Europaeus	113
Jaako Länkelä	89

Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 5,535)

SKVR: SKVR I1 20., SKVR I1 21., SKVR I1 22., SKVR I1 30., SKVR I1 54., SKVR I1 58., SKVR I1 58 a)., SKVR I1 60., SKVR I1 61., SKVR I1 63., SKVR I1 64., SKVR I1 80., SKVR I1 127., SKVR I1 165., SKVR I1 179., SKVR I1 179 a)., SKVR I1 202., SKVR I1 208., SKVR I1 211., SKVR I1 214., SKVR I1 217., SKVR I1 218., SKVR I1 218 a)., SKVR I1 218 b)., SKVR I1 222., SKVR I1 229., SKVR I1 231., SKVR I1 233., SKVR I1 234., SKVR I1 238., SKVR I1 239., SKVR I1 362., SKVR I1 362 a)., SKVR I1 440., SKVR I1 441., SKVR I1 442., SKVR I1 455., SKVR I1 475., SKVR I1 476., SKVR I1 480., SKVR I1 499., SKVR I1 520., SKVR I1 589., SKVR I1 erill. [Polvenhaava] 2., SKVR I2 738., SKVR I2 743., SKVR I2 745., SKVR I2 757., SKVR I2 757 a)., SKVR I2 759 b)., SKVR I2 769., SKVR I2 771., SKVR I2 772., SKVR I2 789., SKVR I2 793 a)., SKVR I2 803., SKVR I2 805., SKVR I2 811., SKVR I2 816., SKVR I2 828.

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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.