‹ Back to the text

bahinagare

bahinagara

masc acc pl of bahinagara (adj); nt acc pl of bahinagara (adj); masc loc sg of bahinagara (adj); nt loc sg of bahinagara (adj); …

1. outside the town; on the outskirts of the city
2. outer city or outside the city

Built from

• bahi — prefix · outside, outward
  Originally an ablative/locative adverb meaning 'outside' or 'away'; from the same root as 'ferō' (Latin 'carry away'). Signals the exterior or external direction.
• nagara — root · city, town
  A borrowed or ancient word for an inhabited settlement; appears in Pali and Sanskrit with the same meaning. Likely from PIE *nak- 'to reach', denoting a place people reach and dwell in.

Analysis. bahi (outside) + nagara (city, town); a locative compound meaning 'in/at the outside city' or 'outside the city', where the first member specifies location relative to the second.

Etymology. bahi < Old Indo-European *bher- 'to carry away, hence outward/external'; cognate with Latin foras 'outside', Greek phero 'I carry'. Nagara is from PIE *nak- 'to reach, attain', suggesting an inhabited place reached by travelers. The compound reflects the spatial concreteness typical of Pali locative compounds.

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

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