‹ Back to the text

dukkhānaṁ

dukkha

genitive plural of dukkha (n.)

1. suffering
2. pain
3. unsatisfactoriness
4. stress

Built from

• du(r) — prefix · bad, wrong
  Marks excess or wrongness; cognate with Greek dys- (dysfunction). Here it intensifies the sense of cramped or difficult.
• kh — root · hollow, cramped
  Related to Sanskrit kha (hollow, space). The image is of something tight or ill-fitting.
• a — ending · nominalizing masculine
  Nominalizes the root into a noun; genitive plural -ānaṁ marks possession or relation to multiple instances of dukkha.

Analysis. du(r)- + -kh- + -a. The prefix du(r)- means 'bad' or 'gone wrong' (cognate with Greek dys- in dysfunction); -kha is related to the Sanskrit root for 'axle hole' or 'hollow', yielding the sense of that which is narrow, cramped, difficult. Together: what feels cramped and wrong, what does not fit.

Etymology. The root ku/kha- relates to Sanskrit kha 'hollow' and 'space'; dukkha is the canonical term in Buddhist doctrine for the First Noble Truth, rendered by the PTS tradition as 'suffering' or 'pain', but more precisely 'unsatisfactoriness'—the existential condition of all compounded things. The prefix du(r)- (bad, hard, gone wrong) appears in Greek dys- (dysphoria) and colors many Pali compounds of dysfunction.

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

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