‹ Back to the text

ekamidāhaṁ

contraction or sandhi form (not a standard dictionary lemma; appears to be ekaṁ + idāni + ahaṁ contracted in speech or verse)

1. once I
2. one time I

Built from

• eka — root · one
  From *oyk-, the Indo-European root for 'one' or 'alone'. Cognate with English one, Latin unus, Greek oinos.
• m — ending · nominative singular masculine
  Nominative case marking the subject ekaṁ (one, once) in the accusative-adverbial sense.
• idāni — root · now
  From *eda- (this, here). An adverbial form; here absorbed into the contraction.
• ahaṁ — root · I
  From Indo-European *ego (I). Cognate with English I, Latin ego, Greek ego. The nominative singular first-person pronoun.

Analysis. ekaṁ (one, once) + idāni (now) + ahaṁ (I) — a colloquial or poetic contraction expressing 'once upon a time I' or 'at one point I'.

Etymology. eka- from Indo-European *oyk- (one, alone; cognate English one, Latin unus, Greek oinos); idāni from *eda- (this, here); ahaṁ from Indo-European *ego (I; cognate English I, Latin ego, Greek ego).

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

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