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ahitāya

ahita

fem instr sg of ahita (pp); masc dat sg of ahita (pp); fem dat sg of ahita (pp); nt dat sg of ahita (pp); …

1. ahita (pp): not good; unbeneficial; harmful
2. ahita (masc): bad person; unfriendly person; enemy
3. ahita (nt): harm; damage; disadvantage; misfortune; lit. not supported
4. ahitāya (nt): unbeneficial; harmful (for); lit. for the harm (of)

Built from

• a — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation. Cognate with English un-, Greek a(n)-.
• hita — stem · placed, beneficial
  Past participle of √dhā 'place, put' (< PIE *dheh₂-). Hita embodies the image of being positioned or supported; its opposite, ahita, is unsupported.
• āya — ending · dative
  Neuter dative singular ending. Marks the goal or recipient (here, 'for harm's sake').

Analysis. a- (not) + hita (placed, supported, beneficial), literally 'not placed/supported'; used as neuter dative 'for harm' in the sense 'to the detriment of'.

Etymology. a- (not) + √dhā (place, put), from Proto-Indo-European *dheh₂- 'to place, put'; cognate with English do, Latin facere, Greek tithenai. The opposite sense, hita 'beneficial', reflects the concrete image of being placed safely or supported; ahita inverts it to mean what lacks support or benefit.

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

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