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bhāyi

aor 3rd sg of bhāyi (verb); aor 2nd sg of bhāyi (verb)

1. was afraid; was frightened (of); feared; was scared

Built from

• bhā — root · fear, dread
  The root √bhī appears as bhā- in the aorist stem. The concrete image is recoiling, shrinking back from danger; found also in Pali bhaya (fear, danger) and bhīru (timid).
• i — ending · 3rd sg aorist
  The suffix -i marks the 3rd person singular aorist tense, encoding past action without imperfective aspect.

Etymology. √bhī (fear, dread) with the aorist suffix -i. Cognate with Latin fīō "I become" in its root sense of trembling motion, and distantly with English be in the sense of coming-to-be or sudden emergence of emotion. The root expresses the primal bodily response of shrinking back.

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

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