‹ Back to the text

addhagato

addhagata

masc nom sg of addhagata (adj)

1. old; lit. travelled the time; gone the distance

Built from

• addha — root · time, duration
  From √ad 'consume, eat' (Latin edō, English eat): time eats away. Used substantively for the flow or measure of time in classical Pali.
• gata — stem · gone, past
  Past participle of √gam 'go' (Latin venio, English come). Marks completion and state: having traversed the span of time.
• -o — ending · nominative singular masculine
  The -o ending marks this as a singular masculine nominative, identifying the subject in the clause.

Analysis. addha (time, duration) + gata (gone, past participle of gacchati 'go'): one who has gone through time, hence aged or seasoned.

Etymology. addha is from √ad 'eat, consume' (compare Latin edō, English eat), applied to the consuming passage of time. gata is the past participle of √gam 'go' (compare Latin venio, English come). The compound's concrete imagery: just as time consumes life, one who has 'gone the distance' through time's consumption is old.

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

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