nähdä metsä puilta

Finnish

Etymology

nähdä (“to see”) + metsä (“forest”) + puilta (“from the trees”)

Verb

nähdä metsä puilta

1. (idiomatic) to see the forest for the trees (to discern an overall pattern from a mass of detail; to see the big picture, or the broader, more general situation)

Usage notes

• Often used in the negative or in the form olla näkemättä metsää puilta, which is synonymous with the negative.

Conjugation

• For the verb, see nähdä.
• metsä is normally in the accusative case (which appears as either the nominative or genitive case depending on the context), but is inflected in the partitive case to express an ongoing or incomplete action or if used in the negative.
• puilta is not inflected.