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evamāhaṁsu

evamāha

3rd person plural aorist indicative of evamāhati (or root aorist of a root *vac- with prefix e-); surface form shows sandhi contraction of evam-āhaṁsu

1. they spoke thus
2. they said so
3. they declared in this manner

Built from

• e — prefix · this
  Demonstrative particle indicating near deixis, pointing to what immediately follows or precedes.
• vam — stem · manner, way
  Noun stem related to the root meaning 'to go' or 'to turn', semantically shifted to 'way, manner'.
• ā — prefix · toward, up to
  Directional prefix reversing the motion of √vac-; here it emphasizes the utterance coming forth.
• h — root · speak, say
  Root vac- (to speak); the h-form is a zero-grade or abbreviated form common in Pali speech verbs.
• aṁsu — ending · 3rd person plural aorist
  Aorist ending marking third person plural in the past tense; they spoke/said.

Analysis. evam (thus, in this way) + āhaṁsu (they spoke, aorist 3pl); evam is a particle/adverb formed from *e-vam (this way); āhaṁsu is the 3rd person plural aorist of āha/vac- (to speak, say)

Etymology. āha derives from √vac- (to speak, say), related to Latin vōx (voice) and English voice; evam combines e- (this, pointing particle related to Sanskrit idam) and -vam (manner, way), cognate with English same and Sanskrit -vat (like, as)

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

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