‹ Back to the text

ādevanā

fem nom sg of ādevanā (noun); fem nom pl of ādevanā (noun); fem acc pl of ādevanā (noun); fem instr sg of ādevanā (noun); …

1. mourning; lamenting; wailing; crying

Built from

• ā — prefix · toward, inward
  Reverses motion toward the speaker; here, brings sorrow inward as an inward state of grief.
• dev — root · weep, mourn
  From Indo-European *dheub-, to beat or strike (as in beating oneself in grief); akin to Sanskrit devati 'weeps' and the root underlying Greek thýptō.
• anā — ending · feminine abstraction nominal
  Nominative singular feminine; the -anā suffix forms abstract action nouns from roots, here the state or act of mourning.

Etymology. ā- (toward) + √deva (to weep, lament), from Indo-European *dheub- (to mourn, be troubled); cognate with Sanskrit devati and the root sense preserved in Greek thýptō (to beat, strike in grief). The prefix ā- reverses the motion of lament, bringing it toward the self: inward grief.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

Lite mode — plain HTML for e-readers and old browsers. Full version