Vocab: jõukas
wealthy
wealthy, well off, prosperous
Building blocks
jõu - likely comes from the Estonian noun jõud "strength," "power," or "ability"
-kas - an adjective forming ending (indicates the abundance of a quality)
Translated literally the meaning would be something like: "full of strength," or "powerful." Likely the word has undergone a semantic shift where instead of “powerful” the word has come to mean “wealthy”. But this derivation also makes sense, because oftentimes money is connected with having power, so someone “wealthy” is also considered someone “powerful”.
How to use it:
Describing Wealth:
"Ta on väga jõukas ärimees." (He is a very wealthy businessman.)
Discussing Prosperity:
"Nende pere on üks linna kõige jõukamaid." (Their family is one of the wealthiest in the city.)
Comparing Financial Status:
"Mina ei ole nii jõukas kui tema." (I am not as wealthy as him.)
Examples
Jõukast perekonnast nooruk läks maailma avastama
Literally: “Wealthy-from family-from adolescent went world to explore”
Idiomatically: “A young man/woman from a wealthy family went off to explore the world”
Jõukast - Adjective - Elative Sg, "Wealthy-from"
perekonnast - Noun - Elative Sg, "family-from"
nooruk - Noun - Nominative Sg, "adolescent"
läks - Verb - 3P Past Sg, "went"
maailma - Noun - Partitive Sg, "world"
avastama - Verb - ma-infinitive, "to explore"