‹ Back to the text

adinnādāyī

masc nom sg of adinnādāyī (adj); masc nom pl of adinnādāyī (adj); fem nom sg of adinnādāyī (adj); nt nom pl of adinnādāyī (adj); …

1. who steals; who takes what is not offered
2. thief; robber; lit. taking what is not given

Built from

• a- — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation, denying the quality following. Cognates: English un-, Greek a(n)-.
• dinna — stem · given
  Past participle of deti 'gives'; from PIE *deh₃ 'to give'. Cognates: Latin dare, English dare (originally 'to give'), Sanskrit dāti.
• dāyī — ending · taking, one who takes
  Agent noun suffix; marks the subject as the one performing the action of √dā 'to take/give'. Here in the sense 'to take'.

Analysis. adinna (not given) + dāyī (taking); literally 'taking what is not given'. A-dinna is the negative participle of deti 'gives', making adinna 'not offered, not given'. Dāyī is the agent noun from √dā 'to take/give' (here in the sense 'to take'). The compound forms an agent noun: 'one who takes what is not given'.

Etymology. a- (without) + dinna (given, past participle of deti, to give) + dāyī (agent noun of √dā, to take). Deti descends from PIE *deh₃ 'to give'; cognates include English 'dare' (originally 'to give'), Latin 'dare', Sanskrit 'dāti'. The a- prefix is plain negation (English 'un-', Greek 'a-'). In the canon, adinnādāna (stealing) is the second of the five precepts; adinnādāyī denotes one who violates the second precept against taking what is not given.

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

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