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asamāhito

asamāhita

masc nom sg of asamāhita (pp)

1. not meditatively composed; scattered; uncollected; unsettled; distracted; unsteady; lit. not placed together here

Built from

• a — prefix · not, without
  Plain negation, cognate with English 'un-' and Greek 'a(n)-' (as in atheist).
• saṁ — prefix · together, with
  Bringing elements into one; cognate with English 'same', Greek 'homo-', Latin 'similis'. Works like Latin con-.
• ā — prefix · toward, up to
  Reverses motion verbs; carries the sense of approaching or gathering toward a point. Sanskrit cognate.
• dhā — root · place, put, set
  Cognate with Sanskrit dhā and distantly Greek tithenai (to place). The concrete image of placing or laying down underlies abstract meanings of establishing and composing.
• ta — ending · past participle
  Masculine nominative singular -ta ending, marking the state or quality resulting from the action of the root; here, 'having been placed (or not placed)'.

Analysis. a- (not) + saṁ (together) + ā (toward) + √dhā (place), literally 'not placed together'; the opposite of samādhi, meditatively composed collectedness.

Etymology. The root √dhā ('place', 'put') is cognate with Sanskrit dhā and Greek tithenai (to place, from which English 'do' and 'deed' derive distantly). The prefix saṁ (from saṃ-, 'together, with') is cognate with English 'same', Greek homo-, and Latin similis; it conveys the bringing of elements into one unified whole. The prefix ā ('toward, to, up to') reverses directional motion verbs. The negation a- ('not, without') is cognate with English un- and Greek a(n)-. Together they express the antithesis of samādhi: the scattering or failure to gather the mind.

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

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