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desanā

fem nom sg of desanā (noun); fem nom pl of desanā (noun); fem acc pl of desanā (noun); fem instr sg of desanā (noun); …

1. teaching; discourse; explaining
2. (vinaya) confessing; admitting
3. (vinaya) appointing; allocating; indicating; designating; showing; lit. pointing out
4. example; illustration; lit. causing to point out

Built from

• de — root · point out, show
  Cognate with Latin dīcere (say, point), English diction. Concrete sense of indicating direction or thing.
• s — stem · stem formant
  Formant connecting root to suffix in derivative formation.
• anā — ending · action noun, feminine
  Feminine suffix -anā nominalizes verbs to denote the action or result, here 'the act of pointing out' → 'teaching'.

Etymology. From √dis (to point, show) with the suffix -anā (feminine action noun). The root dis is cognate with Latin dīcere (to say, point out), English diction, and Sanskrit diś- (direction, quarter). The sense moves from the concrete 'pointing out' to the abstract 'teaching' or 'exposition of doctrine'.

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

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