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aniccāti

anicca

nominative singular feminine of anicca (adj), or indeclinable particle iti appended

1. impermanent; inconstant; not lasting; discontinuous; disordered; unstable; unreliable; irregular
2. rare; irregular; unusual
3. (gram) optional; not mandatory; lit. impermanent
4. impermanence; inconstancy; instability; irregularity; lit. not permanent

Built from

• a — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation. Cognate: English un-, Greek a(n)- (atheist, anonymous).
• nicca — root · permanent, lasting
  From √ni/√nī (to lead, bind, hold firm); cognate with Sanskrit nityá-, meaning that which is bound or held in place over time. The root imagery is of fixity and continuance.
• ā — ending · nominative singular feminine
  The feminine nominative ending marks anicca when used as an abstract noun or attribute, often appearing in doctrinal formulations of the three marks.
• iti — ending · quotative particle (thus, so)
  Indeclinable particle that frames the preceding word as a statement or principle; commonly used to introduce doctrinal pronouncements in the canon.

Analysis. anicca (impermanent) + iti (thus, so); the feminine nominative aniccā (impermanence as a quality or fact) followed by the quotative particle iti, forming an abstract noun or exclamation used in doctrinal contexts to denote impermanence as one of the three marks (tilakkhaṇa).

Etymology. a- (not) + nicca (permanent, lasting); nicca is related to Sanskrit nityá- (eternal, perpetual), from the root √ni/√nī (to lead, bind, hold firm), cognate with English nether and German nieder in their sense of downward fixity. The negation a- strips away this sense of duration, emphasizing the opposite: what is not held, not bound, not lasting.

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

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