‹ Back to the text

dosassa

dosa

masc dat sg of dosa (noun); masc gen sg of dosa (noun); masc dat sg of dosa (adj); nt dat sg of dosa (adj); …

1. aversion; ill-will; hate; hatred
2. fault; wrong; error
3. defect; corruption; problem
4. angry; wrathful; malicious; upset
5. nightfall; dusk; early evening
6. (of the body) humour; elemental condition; lit. fault
7. accusation; blame; reproach

Built from

• do — root · bad, gone wrong
  From du- (bad, hard), a prefix with the same Indo-European origin as Greek dys- and English dull. The root sense is corruption or defect.
• sa — ending · state or quality
  Nominal suffix deriving an abstract noun (dosa as a state or condition) from the root. Here it nominalizes the state of badness into a concrete fault or aversion.

Etymology. From Indo-European *dus- (bad, hard, gone wrong), cognate with Greek dys- (dysfunction, dystopia) and English dull. The concrete sense is 'what has gone wrong' or 'fault', extending to the moral meaning 'aversion' and the medical meaning 'humour' as a corrupted elemental condition. In Buddhist psychology, dosa is one of the three unwholesome roots (akusala-mūla), alongside lobha (greed) and moha (delusion).

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

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